


Our Anthem

by gingersnapper



Series: Our Anthem Universe [1]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Language, F/M, Hunger Games, Prequel: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Rebellion, Sexual Content, Spoilers for Prequel: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 119,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24974830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingersnapper/pseuds/gingersnapper
Summary: Three years after the Third Quarter Quell, the war between the Capitol and the Rebels is still raging. District Thirteen has been destroyed, President Coin and Plutarch are dead, and Peeta and Katniss haven’t seen each other in nearly two years thanks to extensive resistance by the Capitol. With most of the adults no longer around, it’s up to a bunch of kids who happened to survive a convoluted and deadly game, but a bunch of kids is where revolutions start.“Revolutions are in the hands of the young, and the young will always inherit the revolution.”
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Gale Hawthorne/Johanna Mason, Haymitch Abernathy/Effie Trinket, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Series: Our Anthem Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848961
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your interest in reading my take on the Hunger Games! In this story, I have a completely different take on Katniss that (I hope) hasn’t been done before, so I hope you enjoy and don’t forget to read and review!

The story of Katniss Everdeen is widely known, or so it was thought. The girl who grew up to be Katniss Everdeen had a pretty lousy start to her life.

She was born not in the coal mining District Twelve, but instead on the islands of Hebridia, which was all that remained of an old country called Scotland. She was one of many, the firstborn child of Dòmhnall and Eilidh Fòlais. Katniss Fòlais was her name, and she had a twin brother called Dòmhnall, two younger twin brothers called Cailean and Calum, a sister called Ashilda, and two more twin brothers called Alasdair and Anndra. Eilidh had a brother called Eairsaid Everdeen, pronounced Archie, who had gone ahead to Panem a good eight years ago in hopes of starting a life.

But the storms that attacked Hebridia became too dangerous, and it became harder and harder to survive on the remaining islands, so the Fòlais family hopped on the first ship they could find to Panem, having heard excellent things about the land and how it cared for its people. No one outside of Panem knew about the dreadful Hunger Games, so Dòmhnall had no reason to fear for his children's lives. They were a poor family, so District Twelve was their only option.

The ship was attacked by pirates, and young Katniss Fòlais found herself separated from her family along with her twin brother, Dòmhnall, who was later murdered by a pirate before her very eyes. Katniss had been eight years old at the time, and all she had left was her uncle, Eairsaid, who’s name was changed to Archie, and her young cousin, Primrose. When Archie had gone to Panem, he’d met and fallen in love with Agnessa Dover, a merchant girl who was the daughter of an apothecary, and four years after their marriage, they had a daughter called Primrose. When Archie caught word of the Fòlais family’s demise through the arrival of a Peacekeeper informing him of the only survivor, he was quick to adopt young Katniss into his family as his daughter. Nobody dared to question it in fear of retaliation from the Capitol.

The story of Katniss from the time she was eleven, upon the death of Archie in the mines, does not change, but her status as a refugee earned her even more spite from the people of both the town and the Seam. Refugees were viewed as another mouth to feed, and to some, subhuman. But Katniss demanded respect wherever she went, and even pursued a well-respected career amongst those in District Twelve. When she wasn’t hunting in the woods, she was apprenticing as a midwife, assisting the mothers of District Twelve with their births. Despite her status as a refugee, Katniss became well respected and even admired amongst the people in her district, and became even more so when she won the Hunger Games along with her fellow tribute, Peeta Mellark.

Come the Third Quarter Quell, Katniss is thrown into the arena once more, along with Peeta, and the rebels freed both of the District Twelve tributes along with Finnick Odair of District Four, Johanna Mason of District Seven and Beetee Latier of District Three. The tributes were brought to the previously unknown District Thirteen, where Katniss learned that two of her brothers, Cailean and Calum, and her father had survived the attack on their ship.

A little rushed, is it? Well, I’m too excited to tell you my story. You see, I’m Katniss Everdeen, or Katniss Fòlais, as I now prefer considering I am now free of the Capitol. I will go into detail more as I tell my story, but I don’t want to give away too much too early. So, President Snow, if you’re watching this, know now that I am telling my story to inspire the citizens of Panem to rise up and take down the harsh regime that you have created.

Fire is catching, and if we burn, then you’ll burn with us.


	2. Chapter I: In His Darkest Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war brings Peeta to District 8 and he reminisces on a little bit of his life with Katniss and of what little of it they shared together. He loses hope as the district sees heavy bombing and Peacekeeper activity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘In My Darkest Hour’ — Arlo Guthrie

The days were bleak, and growing bleaker. Darkness found me in every crevice of my mind and refused to leave until I succumbed to it. It had been months since I heard from her. I had no idea if she was alive or if she was dead. She could very well be dead, and I’ll never know. I mean, I would eventually, but I would probably be dead before the news ever reached me.

The days were cold, but growing warmer. It wasn’t because of hope - it was because the earth was waking from its winter slumber and the season was turning to spring. It didn’t make the feeling in my heart any warmer. I sat, watching over my team as they all slept. We were somewhere in the forests of District 8, but I didn’t know where. Somewhere between the border of 8 and 10. I was alone, seated away from my team as I held a device in my hand. I forgot what it was called, but it didn’t matter. It was a way to communicate with the other team, with her team, but the communication died out long ago. I could also hack into the Capitol’s news. I looked out for footage of her, but none came. On this bleak day at dusk, as I sat by myself with my back to a tree, I searched through the archives of the Third Quarter Quell. I fast forwarded to a scene on the beach. It was us. Our backs were to the camera, but our voices spoke clearly.

 _“Katniss?”_ I saw myself approach her, and she glanced at me briefly before glancing back at the sunset. _“I’m sorry if I upset you... Finnick started talking about home and how much he’ll miss it...”_

 _“You’re not going to die,”_ she responded, seemingly without emotion.

_“One of us has to, Katniss...”_

_“Then it’ll be me. It has to be me,”_ she said, turning to face me.

_“Katniss, I don’t have anything at home for me anymore, okay? My family hardly speaks to me anymore, claiming I’ve changed so much. Only my father and occasionally, Christos, will come by for a visit but no one else will. If you die, and I live... there won’t be anyone left that I care about.”_

_“Peeta...”_ she said tenderly.

_“It’s different for you. You’ve got your family to care for - Prim, your mother... Gale... Who knows... maybe you’ll find someone to make you happy.”_

_“I’d like you to marry a nice girl... One who treats you the way you deserve... I could have treated you so much better,”_ she responded back to me.

 _“Your family needs you, Katniss.”_ I pulled a locket out of my wetsuit and lifted it over my head, then opened it and placed it in her hand. It was a picture of her mother, her sister and her longtime friend.

 _“What about you?”_ She asked me, seemingly fighting back tears.

 _“Nobody needs me,”_ I said with a sigh and a shrug, and then I sat down on the sand. After a moment, she sat down beside me, her eyes trying to catch mine.

 _“I do,”_ she said in a hushed tone, and I looked at me with a confused expression. _“I need you.”_ I opened my mouth to speak to her, but she leaned towards me, took my face in her hands and kissed me, briefly, and pressed her forehead against mine. Her hands rested on my shoulders, and then it was my turn to cup her face in my hands and kiss her again, this time with more passion. This had been our first real kiss, a kiss that we poured both of our hearts into, that we both wanted, that belonged in the moment. It was the first kiss that felt totally and completely right, and when we came up for air, we pressed our foreheads against one another’s, simply enjoying the moment. I smiled as I watched, knowing what was coming next.

 _“I love you, Peeta...”_ she whispered breathlessly to me.

 _“You... you do?”_ I asked her, and I had to laugh at myself. I was so young and naive back then, and so blind. Since then, I’ve grown a beard, but mostly from a lack of having the ability to shave it. If I ever had the chance, it would go.

 _“Yes, Peeta... I do. I love you,”_ she told me, and I smiled.

_“I love you, too... You have no idea how long I have wanted to tell you, but I didn’t think you felt that way...”_

_“Perhaps I always did, but just didn’t realise it. I knew I felt something for you when we teamed up in the Games last year, but I wasn’t sure what that was... but now I know. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”_ She began to tear up, and I saw myself reach up to wipe a tear from her cheek. _“We could have had more time...”_

_“We’ve got the rest of our lives, don’t we?”_ I’d said. We both smiled at each other, and we leaned in for another kiss, only for us to be interrupted.

 _“Let’s go, lovebirds!”_ came Johanna Mason’s sharp voice, and she let out a sigh.

 _“That’s a moment short lived...”_ she told me, and I chuckled and helped her to stand. I loved to watch this memory whenever I missed her most, which was quite a lot. It was a tender moment, the very first time she told me she loved me. I had to wipe another tear from my eye, missing this moment now more than ever. All I wanted to do was hold her, and kiss her, and love her, but instead, I was here, God knew where, on a mission that was supposed to last only a few months.

Three years had passed since the Third Quarter Quell. Three. And what a long three years it had bee. The rebellion had been raging on for three years with no signs of slowing down. Districts 1, 2, 3 and 5 were resisting the rebellion and joining the Capitol in fighting back under the false promise that their children would no longer be reaped for the Hunger Games, if they won. The Games were still going, but instead of reaping, the children were randomly selected and thrown into the arena. They don’t get a week to meet the Capitol - it was just like the early days of the Games again. They’re thrown into a monkey cage in the Capitol’s zoo and forced to kill each other as soon as they arrive. They’re even more brutal now than they ever had been.

I haven’t seen Katniss in almost two years. We went our separate ways each of us leading a special elite team to ignite or promote rebellion in all of the other districts. My team was called Team Jabberjay, and I had eight members on my team, including myself. My code name was Jabberjay, as I led the team. Our pilot was Katniss’s younger brother, Calum Fòlais, code name ‘Tweedle Dumb’, compliments of his sister. Our medic was called Zeodary Sage, code name ‘Night Nurse’. Our navigator was Gage Harper, code name ‘Polaris’. The rest of my team members were Collier Thornetree (Black Dog), Orion Wolffe (Ice Breaker), Gimm Berkeley (Skid Mark) and Kudos Pinely (Tree Frog). The stories to explain how these became their code names are too long to explain.

Katniss’s team had cooler names. Yes, she was originally called the Mockingjay, but it was decided, after the bombing killed Coin and Plutarch, that together, she and I were the Mockingjay. And what created the Mockingjay? Jabberjays and mockingbirds. So her code name was Mockingbird. On her team was her pilot, her other brother and Calum’s twin, Cailean Fòlais, code name ‘Tweedle Dumber’. Katniss was the medic and the leader on her team, so they had more pilots instead, and they were Graham Leper, code name Blue Jay, Hadley Walker, code name Chickadee, and Mimo Dayroot, codename Lark. Their navigator was another Hebridean refugee called Alasdair Douglas, code name Oriole. They had eleven members, including Katniss, and were an airborne unit. Their other members included Angus Hepper (Woodpecker), Keeko Thorne (Hummingbird), Fellord Hartstone (Canary), my only surviving brother, Donnel Mellark (Eagle Eye) and someone I wasn’t too thrilled about, Gale Hawthorne, code name Warbler.

I remember when the teams were made up, I was upset by Gale spending so much time with Katniss, but shortly before we’d split up, Katniss and I had married, and Gale lost her forever. But I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted him alone with her. But now, almost two years later, I hoped he lived up to his promise of keeping her alive, because we sent messages every few days for most of those two years until about four months ago, when we lost contact completely.

District Thirteen was bombed shortly after our teams went on their way, and President Coin and Plutarch were killed, leaving the rebellion to have no leadership. Katniss and I were married the night before we were to leave, both in a District Thirteen tradition and our District Twelve tradition of a toasting ceremony. She also asked for a Hebridean tradition, which involved a vow spoken in her native language of Gàidhlig. It went something like this:

_Bheir mi dhut m’ anam,_

_Bheir mi dhut mo chridhe._

_Tha mi a’ mionnachadh gu bheil gaol agam ort_

_Gus am bi a’ ghrian na chadal gu bràth._

In English, it translated to this:

_I give you my soul,_

_I give you my heart,_

_I swear to love thee_

_Until the sun sleeps forever._

I thought it a very romantic vow, and I couldn’t say no to her when she asked, even though I butchered the hell out of the pronunciation. Her Hebridean language was very difficult to understand and even more difficult to say, but she promised to try and teach me at least some of the language when the rebellion is over. If the rebellion ever ends. I put away my device as I saw the first members of my team waking up, and I knew it was time to head into District 8.

We walked into a horrific situation. The District was being firebombed, much like how Twelve had been three years before. There was nothing we could do to stop the bombers. We were a ground unit, with no aircraft - we’d lost it in an air raid in District 10. All we could do was wait for the bombing to lighten up, but that didn’t matter. There were Peacekeepers in the streets shooting any rebels and any dissenters. We had to be careful. Orion and Gimm had been killed by falling debris from a building that took a direct hit from a bomb, and Kudos was shot by a Peacekeeper. I had no idea where Zeodary and Gage were, and I could hear no chatter from anyone on my communicuff, whether they were on my team or not. I knew the hospital was under attack, as it was believed to house militaristic rebels, but in truth, these were civilians who were just trying their best to live through the war.

I won’t lie, I was terrified. I was injured, shot through the shoulder, and Calum was shot through the leg. Only Collier remained uninjured, but who knew for how long. Calum couldn’t walk and I couldn’t help Collier carry him far, but we managed to get him to the roof of an intact building. Sitting down and leaning against the wall, I spoke into my communicuff with desperation.

“Hello... is there anyone out there...” I said, but no response came. We were dead in the water, I had let my team down, and there was nothing I could do.


	3. Chapter II: Hero of the Skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta receives an answer to his pleas for help. The rebels fight the Capitol in District 8 but are forced to retreat due to being outnumbered. More to tell, but don’t want to spoil ;)

The communicuff was silent, which meant there was nobody out there hearing my cries for help. “Come on, Night Nurse, we’ve got a severe injury, you’re needed!” I said into my communicuff calling out to Zeodary, but there was no answer. “Hello? Night Nurse, do you copy?” Still no answer. I began to lose hope. We were the hospital’s last defense, and over half of us were dead, missing or injured. I wouldn’t exactly call that a great defense. “Come on anyone, does anyone copy?” I said again with desperation laced in my voice, but there was still no answer. “I repeat, does anyone copy? This is Jabberjay, does anyone copy?” I heard what sounded like static in response and, somewhere in there, a voice. “Hello, does anyone copy?” I paused, waiting for anything, even that static that told of someone trying to get into contact with me. After what felt like an eternity, a female voice came through with a strong, firm and distinct Hebridean accent.

“Jabberjay, this is Mockingbird, I hear you loud and clear,” came Katniss’s voice through the communicuff, and I let out a cry of joy. Not only was my wife, and the love of my life, alive but she was close enough to communicate with me through the communicuff!

“Katniss!” I exclaimed. “I am so glad to hear your voice! Where are you right now?”

“Up high to be your eyes in the sky,” she responded. “We’ve got four fighters prepared for battle heading your way. What’s your location?”

“This is the old coat factory,” said Collier, a former resident of District 8.

“Top of the old coat factory,” I said into the communicuff.

“Turn your eyes to the sky, boys. Sit back, relax and enjoy the show,” said Katniss, and within seconds, four fighters zoomed over our heads in formation heading straight for the incoming bombers. They started shooting down the second wave of bombers, all four of them zooming around and causing chaos for the Peacekeepers and the Capitol’s bombers. One of them zoomed by upside down over our heads, and I could have sworn that I saw her piloting it through the windows. It seemed that the fighters were doing an excellent job at fighting off the bombers, until the Capitol released some fighters of their own. Suddenly, the four rebel fighters were outnumbered and doomed, and fear struck me. I could hear the chatter of the four rebel fighters coming in.

“There’s too many of them, we’ve got to retreat!” exclaimed a male voice in a Hebridean accent. Cailean?

“We can’t do that! We have to take out as many as we can, we have to defend the hospital!” exclaimed another male voice.

“Need I remind you two who’s in charge of this unit?” came Katniss’s Hebridean accent.

“What do you suggest we do, Soldier?” came a small female voice.

“Lead the fighters away from the city, they’re not here to destroy it, they’re here for us. Abandon your craft, if you have to, if they get too close to you,” Katniss told them. It was a battle of a lifetime, or so it felt. I watched with fear as the four fighters started leading the Capitol fighters out of the city. I watched as one rebel fighter headed towards the building we were on was shot in the tail by a Capitol fighter and began to smoke.

“Woodpecker, are you all right back there?” came Katniss’s voice. There was no response. “Woodpecker?”

“Mockingbird, disengage! Your tail is on fire!” shouted a male voice that I recognised as Gale Hawthorne’s.

“Thank you, captain obvious,” she said. “Woodpecker, bail out! Bail out!” I don’t know what happened inside of the aircraft, but I saw the glass cover pop open and two individuals shot out of it as it flew sideways right in front of us and landed on the roof of the taller building next to us. One of the individuals had rolled all the way to the edge and smashed up against the concrete barrier and didn’t move, a single gloved hand draped over the side of it. It was a small hand.

“Katniss,” I whispered to myself, knowing it was her who lay there motionless. “Katniss!”

“Peeta, there’s no time, we have to get underground!” shouted Collier, and I hated him in that moment for trying to stop me from running to the love of my life. He grabbed me from behind as I tried to run to her, and I grabbed her gloved hand, trying to feel for a pulse but unable to feel it through the glove.

“Katniss!” I shouted, begging her to respond, but she didn’t. All of a sudden, a large shadow overtook us and Collier froze, and I looked up as a bomber approached us. The bottom hatch began to open, and I knew that we were about to die. But just as suddenly, I felt Katniss’s hand rip from mine, leaving her glove behind, and she sat up, tossing the massive parachute that had tangled up around her and pulling a small black cylinder out from behind her. She pressed a button, and that cylinder became a full bow, and at the same time, a pack on her back transformed into a quiver full of arrows. She quickly grabbed one, a red-tipped arrow, loaded the bow and shot it at the bomber, which exploded above us in a fiery rage. As Collier and I processed what happened, Katniss had fully shed the parachute and her helmet and ran over to the other individual that was wrapped in a parachute, pulling it off of him and checking for a pulse.

“Woodpecker’s dead,” she said into her communicuff, and she stood there for a moment, observing her surroundings. Her chocolate brown hair was tied back into a low ponytail and she was wearing a jumpsuit only a pilot would wear. Suddenly, she turned back to us and ran towards us, stopping by where her parachute was and grabbing a pack before leaping over the barrier and onto the lower building, which was easily a seven foot drop. “Inside! Get down underground!” she shouted, more to Collier, as he was uninjured. I felt him grab me and drag me to the door leading to the stairwell of the building, demanding I help him grab Calum and carry him to safety while Katniss covered us, shooting explosive arrows at Capitol fighters overhead and blasting them from the sky.

We were three levels down when I shouted, “Stop! Stop! I can’t go on!”, feeling my shoulder throbbing where I had been shot with a bullet. I heard footsteps coming from above and Katniss appeared, pushing me first to sit and then forcing me to lie down. She pulled a knife out of her belt and started cutting away at my shirt, revealing my bare and bloodied shoulder underneath, then sat the knife between her teeth. She opened her bag and dug out a spray and a needle, spraying the part of my skin near the wound, which made my skin feel cold, and gently inserting a needle in. I hardly felt the needle go in, but whatever she injected into me was painful. When she was finished, she turned to Calum and did the same to his leg, only he felt the needle and let out a cry of pain. When she was done with him, she turned back to me and started lightly flicking the site where she had injected whatever it was in the needle into me.

“Feel anything?” she asked me, her words slightly muffled by the knife in her teeth.

“No,” I said, shaking my head, and she reached into her bag and pulled out a scalpel. “What are you doing!” She didn’t respond, but instead held the scalpel to my skin and started cutting into me starting from the wound to about an inch away from it. I didn’t feel it, but it looked terrifying, and I had to look away or I’d vomit. Using some other tool, she opened the cut and reached in with a pair of what looked like tweezers and pulled the bullet out of my shoulder. It had shattered against the bone, in turn breaking it, and she pulled out fragments of the bullet.

“Can’t set the bone, can tend the wound,” she told me quickly as she pulled what looked like an aerosol can out of her bag, and she sprayed it onto my shoulder. A milky substance came out, but then it turned the colour of my skin and seemed to cover up the wound. Then she sat me up and lifted my arm gently, wrapping a bandage around my shoulder, then pulling out a sling and setting my arm in it to rest. “Don’t move it, you’ll do more internal damage.” I nodded in agreement as I watched her tend to Calum.

I think she mentioned that only three members of her immediate family had survived the attack, plus her uncle and her cousin, who were later passed off as her father and sister in Panem. Her real father and two younger twin brothers had survived and lived in District 13, until a pox came and killed her father as he worked to find a cure for it. Apparently, her father was a scientist type who worked in advancing medicine, while her mother was an obstetrician. I watched as she tended to Calum’s leg, doing the same thing she did for me, pulling the bullet out and then spraying that substance onto the wound.

“What is that?” Calum asked her.

“Liquid temporary stitches. Invented them myself,” she explained, and she wrapped up his leg with a bandage.

“That was quick,” I commented, noting that it took her maybe all of five minutes to tend to both me and Calum.

“Gotta be quick on the battlefield,” she said. “By the way, love the beard.” She gave me a smile and a wink, and I returned the smile. In the last two years, I didn’t have access to a razor and shaving cream, so I sort of just let my facial hair grow out. Well, I did at one point, but I lost the razor. I intended on shaving it, though, once things calmed down anyway.

“We’ve gotta move,” said Collier, and we all agreed. We helped Calum to stand and with the treatment, it was easier for him to move, but we still helped him. As we continued down the stairs, Katniss paused, placing a hand over an earpiece in her ear.

“The hospital has fallen... They must have gotten to it,” she announced.

“All those people...” Calum said.

“My team started evacuating them before we even showed up in the aircraft,” Katniss said. “It was me and Angus in a fighter, Gale and Cailean in another, then Graham and Hadley each in a single. Alasdair, Mimo, Keeko, Fellord and Donnel all started evacuating the hospital.”

“Is Donnel all right?” I asked, feeling concern for my older brother.

“Must be, he’s the one that announced the fall of the hospital,” she replied, and then she stepped away from the group and spoke into her communicuff. “With the hospital down and so many of us wounded, we need to retreat. Disengage! Land all fighters and get to the hovercraft!”

“And the ground unit?” came Donnel’s voice. He must have been put in charge of the ground unit.

“A rebel medical fleet is on its way,” Katniss said.

“I’ve received orders from Seabird, Mockingbird. I’ll send you the coordinates,” came Cailean’s voice.

“On the hovercraft. Get to it, Tweedle Dumber,” Katniss said to her younger brother. She looked into her communicuff, then turned to me. “I’ve got separate orders, but I’ve just sent you the coordinates of the hovercraft. Get to it, I’ll be there soon.” She took off running towards the exit of the building.

“Katniss, wait!” I called after her.

“No time, get to the hovercraft!” she shouted back, and then she disappeared. Knowing that both myself and Calum were seriously injured, I didn’t want to cross her, so I removed the communicuff from my wrist and handed it to Collier.

“You’re the only one not injured. Get us there safely. Commander’s orders,” I told him, and he nodded. Collier also knew District 8 really well, having come from District 8, so this young District 8 man led a clumsy District 12 and a clueless District 13 man through the deserted, but destroyed streets. We passed through buildings following the path that led to where the hovercraft was located, and even went through some tunnels, and after maybe half an hour, we finally got to the location of the hovercraft, climbing on board.

“Hey there, Jabberjay,” came Zeodary’s voice, and I was surprised to see him alive. Injured, but alive.

“Where the hell did you get off to?” I asked him.

“Got separated in a bombing. Gage got hit, lost a leg, but he’ll be okay,” Zeodary said to me. He was also from District 13, while Gage was from District 3. “Your wife got us here, though. She’s in the cabin, piloting this thing. Grabbed some fancy object, too.”

“Everyone here?” came Gale Hawthorne’s authoritative voice, and he glanced around at the mess of people in the belly of the hovercraft. “Mellark, Sage, Harper, Thornetree, Fòlais...”

“ _ Fow-las,” _ Calum corrected him. Gale had pronounced it as Foh-las, but Gale ignored him.

“Where’s Berkeley, Wolffe and Pinely?” he demanded, looking at me.

“All dead, they died in the bombing,” I replied, and then Gale turned to his team, who sat on the other side of the hovercraft.

“Cailean and Katniss are in the cabin... Dayroot, Thorne, Hepper’s deceased, Douglas’s deceased, Hartstone, Leper, Walker... Mellark?” Gale said, turning to see my brother climbing up the ramp and entering the hovercraft.

“Thorne’s dead, he died of his injuries,” Donnel told him. Gale scribbled something down on a clipboard as Leper and Dayroot carried a covered body up the ramp and laid it down on the floor. That must have been Thorne. Gale then went over to a big metal door and banged on it twice, and then the big ramp closed and the hovercraft took off, putting us back in the air and carrying us off to safety. Where safety was, I didn’t know, but I did know that soon, I would be able to hold Katniss in my arms again.


	4. Chapter III: The Underwater District

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hovercraft arrives at the new underwater base of District 14, and both Katniss and Peeta are sent to the hospital for their injuries.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

After taking a moment to let out a sigh, Donnel glanced around at the beaten and bloodied people before him, and then his eyes fell on me. He nodded to me and sat down next to me on the empty seat beside me. “Hey there, little bro,” he said to me with a comforting smile. “How’ve ya been?”

“Better than this, better than I have been in the last two years,” I told him.

“You look rough and hardened. Beard looks good, though. You finally look like a man instead of a boy,” Donnel told me, ruffling my hair like he used to when we were kids. Donnel was two years older than me, and our oldest brother, Christos, had been three years older than me when he died in the bombing of District 12. He had a wife, Aaricia, who was three years older than me, who had also died in the bombing. She had just married Christos before I had gone off to the Quarter Quell; they’d been in love since they were children. “You don’t look like my little brother anymore.”

“I plan on cleaning it up. I don’t really like it much,” I told him. “What about you?”

“We’ve had it rough. We travelled to all parts of Districts 9, 6, 11 and 10 before meeting up with you in 8. This campaign was only supposed to take a few months. Boy, did things go wrong,” he said with a chuckle, and I had to chuckle, too.

“For nearly two years, I kept everyone under me alive, until today. Now I’ve lost three.”

“I get that. Losing Thorne and Douglas under me wasn’t easy... but that’s war, isn’t it?” he said, and I nodded gently.

“How was Katniss? I thought she was dead, we hadn’t spoken in so long,” I asked my brother.

“A hard ass, that’s for sure. That woman’s so stubborn, she wouldn’t let us rest until she knew we were safe. She’s a strong woman, that one. You’re a lucky guy,” my brother told me.

I was twenty now, but I felt so much older. Donnel was twenty-three, but he didn’t look it. Gale was twenty-two, but he looked thirty, and Katniss was also twenty. It was easy to forget that we were all just kids. The oldest member among us had been Alasdair Douglas, who was thirty-four, but he’d died in the bombing of the hospital. The rest of us were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. I glanced over at Gale, who was seated beside the metal door that led to the cabin, that led to Katniss, and he locked eyes with me.

“Door’s locked if we’re airborne. You can’t get in,” he told me somewhat coldly, and I couldn’t help but narrow my eyes at him.

“I wasn’t asking,” I told him.

“Whatever,” Gale spat back. We didn’t exactly like each other. The main reason Gale hated me was because I had been the one that won over Katniss’s heart, the one she fell in love with, and he’d been the one she left behind. I didn’t hate him, but I certainly didn’t like him, either. Most of my dislike was directed at his personality. He was a warbird, if I ever saw one, when Katniss and I were more dove-like. He was as hard before the war even began as he was now. War hadn’t hardened him because it didn’t need to. Him constantly going after Katniss certainly didn’t make me like him any more, either.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

“The coordinates Seabird gave me were 51.038248 degrees Latitude and -128.826104 degrees Longitude,” Cailean had told me as I input the coordinates once we were in the air. I had to admit, I loved flying, and I had been begging to learn how to pilot aircraft ever since I first arrived in District 13. President Coin didn’t want me to do anything exciting, but after she died in an attack on District 13, she wasn’t around to tell me no anymore. In the last two years, I learned to pilot multiple different kinds of aircraft from Cailean, who was brought up in District 13 learning to fly the craft since he was seven years old.

“That’s in the middle of the ocean. Is she mad?” I asked. Seabird was Carolina Abernathy, a secret daughter of my Hunger Games mentor, Haymitch Abernathy. After he won his games, his family and his love had been killed, but about twenty years ago, he found himself falling in love again. But when he noticed an increased number of Peacekeepers watching him, he’d sent the woman he fell in love with into the woods telling her to go north in search of District 13, and she had, giving birth to Carolina in District 13. Carolina Abernathy and her mother, Sabina, were welcomed with open arms there and Carolina grew up coordinating sea craft. It was her job, along with Finnick Odair and Johanna Mason, to build another secret underground base hidden away from the Capitol. “Is there even anything up there?”

“Nothing from Panem. As far as I know, that land has been unoccupied for a long time. There were rumours that it used to be a District 14, but I don’t know how true that is,” Cailean responded to me. We spoke together in our native Hebridean language of Gàidhlig, as it was more comfortable to speak to each other that way. “You did good, you know, getting those two guys back here. And fast. And you got the thing?”

“I got the thing. They’ll get the medical attention they need hopefully in this new base, if that’s what it is. I wonder how long it took them to build it,” I said.

“The better part of two years, that’s for sure.” We sat in silence for a moment as we flew the hovercraft towards the location, and I glanced at the door behind us and let out a sigh. “Want me to take over?”

“For a bit, if you can,” I said, and he transferred the controls over to his steering system. “Sometimes, I wish these doors didn’t lock when we’re in flight...”

“You want to see Peeta?” he asked me, and I nodded.

“Haven’t seen him in almost two years and the first time we do see each other, we’re in the middle of a bombing raid and I can’t even pause five seconds to kiss him.”

“You and I both know it would have taken you more than five seconds to kiss him.” I couldn’t help but let out a gentle laugh.

“Oh, I know. Which is another reason why I didn’t stop. Two years... He looks so different. So... mature, and grown up. He still looked like a boy, the last time we saw each other, and now he looks like a man. Did you see the beard he’s grown?”

“I didn’t even get to see him at all, Kat. Nor Calum. You were with him, right? How is he?” I knew how concerned Cailean was for his twin brother. They didn’t want to be on separate teams, but Peeta’s team needed Calum and mine needed Cailean.

“He had a bullet lodged in his femur, broke the bone but he’ll be all right. Those liquid stitches you helped me create hold really well.”

“Really? Good. I miss that stupid idiot.” We both shared a chuckle.

“How far are we, would you say?”

“A few hours, maybe. Get some rest. You being a rebel leader means you’ll have a lot to do when we get to our new base.”

“You know I won’t sleep well...”

“Then at least rest your eyes, and think of Peeta and how happy you’ll be when you see him again.”

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

We were in flight for about three hours, and about fifteen minutes before we landed, I asked Gale where exactly we were going.

“Don’t know, only they know,” he said, referring to Katniss and Cailean in the cabin.

“Do you at least know how long we’re gonna be flying for?” I asked him.

“Still don’t know. Told you, only they know,” Gale replied back, and I just rolled my eyes and sat back down. Katniss had once begged me to be civil to him, but it’s hard to be civil to a guy who can’t be civil back. About fifteen minutes later, we landed, and I wanted to wait for the metal door to open up so I could be reunited with Katniss, but I was rushed off to the hospital wing to have my broken collarbone corrected. It was somewhat cold and damp inside of this new hangar, and there was water all over the floor. It smelled salty, almost as if we were near the ocean.

“Where are we?” I asked the medic who was accompanying me on a gurney.

“We call ourselves District 14. Not a real district, but we weren’t really sure what else we were gonna call ourselves,” said the medic.

“I suggested Atlantis, but no one wanted to listen to me,” came the voice of Finnick Odair, and I looked up to find him standing with us on some elevator. “Hey, Peeta. How’s it going?”

“Finnick? Where are we?” I asked him.

“A new underground base, except it’s not underground, it’s under _water_ ,” Finnick replied. “We’re concealed by an island that we used to hide the entrance, but our hangar still has to rise out of the water so the aircraft can land in it.”

“Was it your idea to put it underwater?” I asked the District 4 man, who was practically raised in the water, and he chuckled.

“Sort of a combined thought process between myself, Johanna, Carolina and Haymitch,” Finnick replied. I had almost forgotten about Carolina. I remember when Haymitch told us about her and her mother, I was confused, because I couldn’t imagine who would want to be with someone who was constantly drunk. But then when I met Carolina (her mother had perished in the Pox outbreak that also killed Katniss’s father), she told me that her mother swore he wasn’t an alcoholic before her.

“Where’s Katniss?” I asked him.

“Pilots have a special protocol they have to follow in order to properly shut down and lock down the aircraft, so they can’t be hijacked. She’ll be down to see you soon,” Finnick told me. The elevator stopped and the medics wheeled me out. “See you later, Peeta!” Finnick called out after me. It wasn’t long before I was lifted onto a table, and then given a shot that would push me to drift into unconsciousness.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

As we approached the coordinates, all I could see out here was ocean and a small, lonely and pathetic-looking island. “We’re nearly on top of it... Where is this base?” I asked my brother.

“I don’t know, all I got were coordinates, and they were in a difficult code to break,” Cailean replied. “Maybe radio in?” I pushed a button to open up the radio.

“Seabird or someone, this is Mockingbird. Permission to land... somewhere?” I said into my headset. At first I heard nothing, but then I heard a bit of static.

“Mockingbird, this is District 14, you are clear for landing,” said a male voice, and Cailean and I exchanged a look of confusion. But before our very eyes, a large cylindrical object started emerging from the water and two flaps opened up. Down inside of it, I could see someone guiding me to land in a specific spot. I slowly lowered the hovercraft to land where the guide told me, and Cailean and I began the process of shutting down and locking down. He opened the ramp to let out our passengers as we typed in codes into computers.

“I can’t wait to see what Finnick and Carolina and all them have been working on. Already, I’m impressed!” I said as I glanced up and saw the flaps of the cylinder closing and felt the ground beneath us sinking down.

“This is incredible! It’s an underwater base!” Cailean exclaimed. It took us about ten minutes to lock down before we were able to exit the hovercraft, and we climbed down a ladder to stand in a puddle of saltwater as Carolina Abernathy approached us with a charming smile.

“Long time, no see!” she exclaimed. Like Haymitch, she had straight blonde hair, only worn in a ponytail, and she resembled him quite a bit. She had Seam eyes that were a brilliant pale blue, but looked like she came from the village of District 12.

“Carolina! This place is incredible! Is this all underwater?” I asked her.

“Yup! The entire base! You two are looking rough, what happened out there in 8?” Carolina asked us.

“Bombers,” said Cailean. “We lost a lot of people.”

“I hear you met up with Peeta’s team, too?” asked Carolina.

“Briefly, yes. I came across them when I had to evacuate my fighter and then both teams convened in the hovercraft,” I replied. “Where is Peeta?”

“Probably on his way to the hospital, along with everyone else you were carrying. Probably would be smart if you two went, too. Get checked over and all that,” said Carolina, and I nodded.

“Sounds like an excellent idea. Can you take us there?” asked Cailean, and Carolina nodded as she led the way.

“Has anyone taken over since Coin and Plutarch died?” I asked Carolina once we entered the same elevator that, unbeknownst to me, Peeta had been in about fifteen minutes before.

“Not really. The people think you and Peeta make excellent leaders, and some leaders of the districts have taken over the districts of course, but we need someone to unite us all,” Carolina explained.

“What’s the plan? We’ve been rallying the districts for almost two years now and have bumps and bruises and bullet holes to show for it. What’s the next step?” I asked her, and Carolina sighed.

“I don’t know. But you and Peeta are back so maybe once you two heal, we can figure that out,” Carolina replied. The doors opened and Carolina led us out into the hospital, then brought us to what was listed as an emergency department. “Head in there, they’ll look you over and do what needs to be done. If you’re well enough, maybe I’ll see you at dinner?”

“That’d be nice,” I told her, and she left Cailean and I there. We approached the front desk, where a woman dressed in teal scrubs was writing stuff down. “Excuse me, do we have to check in or do we just walk in? How’s this work?”

“Check in with me, what’s your name?” the lady asked me.

“Katniss Fò-“ I began, and then I stopped myself, remembering that the night before our two teams embarked on our missions, Peeta and I had been married, but many people still called me either Katniss Everdeen, which was my uncle’s surname and my mother’s maiden name, or Katniss Fòlais, which was my birth surname. “...Katniss _Mellark_.”

“Mellark, Mellark... Ah, yes, there you are. Is it a dire emergency or a minor injury?” asked the lady.

“Dunno, suppose minor? Feels like I’ve got cracked ribs or something,” I said, and I felt a tap on my shoulder. “What?” I asked my brother, turning to look at him, and he met my eyes. Cailean and Calum were identical in every aspect except for their eyes. Calum’s left eye was blue and his right was brown, and on Cailean, it was a mirror image - his right eye was blue and his left was brown. He pointed towards something and I looked in the direction of his finger and saw an unconscious Peeta on a gurney being pushed out of an operating room. “Peeta!” I shouted, pushing past others to get to him and stopping the gurney. “Peeta! How is he? Is he all right?” I asked the two medics, who were surprised to be stopped.

“He’ll be all right, Ms. Everdeen,” said one of them, using the completely wrong name.

“It’s Mrs. Mellark, thanks. Where are you taking him?” I demanded.

“To the recovery ward, you can visit him soon once we get him situated,” said the other medic. “He’ll be all right, he’s in good hands.” The man put a hand over mine and smiled at me reassuringly. I nodded gently, then looked down at Peeta, who was still under sedation, and I leaned down to kiss his forehead.

“I’ll see you soon,” I whispered to him, and then I stepped aside to let them take my Peeta away, but I knew he was safe. And then it was my turn. It turned out that I had three cracked ribs from when I landed on the concrete building after being ejected from my fighter and a sprained wrist, also likely from when I landed. Cailean was lucky and didn’t have any damage, minus some dehydration, so all he was in for was an IV drip for a couple of hours. I had to lie down while they did a rather excruciating procedure on me involving a lot of shots and a painful substance.

“This’ll speed up the healing process,” said the doctor performing the procedure. Had it been me, I would have at least given the poor bastard getting it a little bit of morphling to get through the pain.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

I heard some beeping and a bit of other noises around me that sounded somewhat like muffled talking, and then felt something warm on my forehead. I didn’t hear it clearly, but it sounded like someone had whispered the words ‘see you soon’ into my ear. Katniss? I didn’t know. My eyes were still closed, as I was still too groggy from the sedation to fully wake up. My mind was awake, but the rest of my body wasn’t. By the time I could fully awaken, I was lying in a white bed wearing a white loose shirt and white loose pants, almost like scrubs. My shoulder hurt like an absolute bitch - they must have fixed my collarbone. Standing above me was a very smiley Carolina Abernathy and behind her, Haymitch.

“Morning, sleepyhead!” Carolina said cheerfully and waved at me. I groaned slightly, then went to raise my right arm but found that I couldn’t.

“Don’t move your arm, boy. You need to rest, or it’ll take longer for you to heal,” Haymitch had said, stepping towards me.

“How’s that gonna work, I’m right-handed,” I whispered sleepily, but I don’t know if he heard me. “Katniss...”

“She’s fine, Peeta. She’s got some broken ribs, they’re working on her as we speak. Get some sleep if you can, she’ll be in as soon as she can. You know that girl, they’ll have to bind her to the bed to keep her from running to you, and even that’s not a sure way of keeping her still,” Haymitch said, and I felt myself smile and gently chuckle. The room became clearer as I came out of the sedation and I took a look at them. The two Abernathys, father and daughter, seemed to change very little from when I last saw them.

“You both look exactly the same,” I said quietly.

“You don’t. You look gruff,” said Haymitch. “Didn’t you have a razor?”

“Lost it about three months into the mission,” I told him.

“Well, take a trip to the barber, it doesn’t suit you,” said Haymitch rather brashly.

“I like it! I think it makes you look tough, Peeta,” Carolina said.

“Katniss said she liked it,” I said back. I could feel myself getting dizzy and progressively, more groggy.

“That’s it, boy, get some sleep,” Haymitch said, and he was the last thing I saw before the room went dark as I closed my eyes. When I woke up again, another set of faces were staring at me, the unique eyes of Calum and Cailean. It looked like they decided to share their eyes as they each had one blue eye and one brown eye, but they were the mirror image of each other. It was nice to see the two of them together again.

“Hey, big brother,” said Cailean with a charming smile.

“Sleep well?” asked Calum. Calum was seated in a wheelchair while Cailean was standing up.

“Hey,” I said sleepily. “How’s the leg, Calum?”

“Didn’t lose it, so that’s good! Kat did an excellent job preventing infection,” Calum said.

“What about you, Cailean? Are you all right?” I asked my other brother-in-law. I believe Cailean was the older of the two, but not by much.

“Dehydration. I got lucky, compared to everyone else,” Cailean replied. “Your brother was here earlier, Donnel. He’s doing well, pretty much unscathed. He’s at dinner now, but he’d probably like to come back when you’re up.”

“What about...”

“Kat?” asked Calum. “She’s out right now, her injuries were a bit more extensive than originally thought so she had to have surgery, but she’ll be okay. Just a punctured lung, nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“Can I see her?” I asked the two brothers.

“Your doctor doesn’t want you getting up right now, but I’m sure you can see her soon,” Calum replied. As if almost by telepathic thought, Katniss suddenly appeared behind the curtain that blocked off my section of the recovery ward. “But maybe she won’t care what the doctor has to say!”

“Katniss!” I exclaimed, trying to sit up to reach for her, but she just pushed past her two brothers and took my hand.

“Lie back down, _mo ghaol_ , you need to rest!” she told me as I squeezed her hand tightly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cailean and Calum slip out.

“My god, Katniss, I missed you so much!” I exclaimed, my free hand that wasn’t stuck in a sling touching her face.

“Shhh, Peeta, love... I missed you, too,” she told me, smiling at me and leaning over me to give me a deep, passionate kiss. “All right, maybe I don’t love the beard as much as I thought I did.” We both shared a laugh, and my racing heart began to calm down as she started stroking my hair.

“You should really be resting, your brothers said you had to have surgery due to a punctured lung,” I said, running my fingers through her hair.

“Shh, don’t worry about me, you’re worse for wear than I am,” she said. A moment of silence passed between us as we held each other’s faces and looked into each other’s eyes.

“I love you, Katniss,” I said to her, and she smiled warmly.

“I love you, too, Peeta,” she replied. Having not heard her utter those words in nearly two years, I teared up a bit, and I felt her thumb brush away my tears.

“Shh, no tears, _mo ghaol_ ,” she said. As we sat there reuniting not in the way that we wanted but still in the way that we could, a medic dressed in teal scrubs entered my little cubicle.

“Mrs. Mellark, you’re supposed to be resting. You just came out of surgery,” he said.

“Just now out of surgery?” I asked my wife, smiling when I heard her addressed as ‘Mrs. Mellark’.

“Twenty minutes out, maybe,” she said.

“Katniss! You need to rest! I need you to get better so you can come back to me!” I scolded her, and she laughed.

“All right, fine! I just wanted to see you! I haven't seen you in two bloody years,” she told me, and she leaned down to give me one final kiss. “I’ll see you soon, Peeta. I love you.”

“I love you!” I called after her as the medic led her away. Having her ripped away from me yet again was heartbreaking, but knowing that she was okay and nearby was a comfort. I knew I would see her soon, but my heart ached because I didn’t know when.


	5. Chapter IV: Searching For The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Victors of the Hunger Games meet and discuss the future leadership of the rebellion.

It would be another day or so before we would see each other again. I was finally feeling better and when I got up and asked where Katniss was, I was told that she has been discharged already and was no longer in the hospital. As I stood there wondering where she could be, the doors from the elevator opened and in walked Gale Hawthorne, and he made a beeline straight for me.

“You’re needed in the command room,” he said with authority.

“What for?” I asked.

“Don’t know, they told me to fetch you. You’re being discharged. Head to your room first. Might wanna change first,” said Gale, and he left me standing there confused as ever. I turned to the lady in teal at the front desk.

“Do you happen to know where either of those things are?” I asked her.

Apparently, the room I would be sharing with Katniss was D1127 (I couldn’t wait to have a proper ‘reunion’ with her in there). I went in and found a dresser full of both of our clothes and picked out a pair of khaki pants and a light blue t-shirt, being careful to undress and then dress in regards to my shoulder. On the small table beside our bed was a photograph of Katniss and I on our wedding day. I picked it up and smiled at it, noting the very young faces that were smiling at each other and full of so much love. I had been wearing a white shirt and white khaki pants while she wore a cream-coloured dress and a tartan sash with the Fòlais colours. We each had a piece of bread in our hands - the toasting ceremony, a tradition in District Twelve representing marriage. I let out a sigh, missing her now more than ever, and wondered if maybe I would see her in the command room.

Before I left, I decided I needed a serious shave. Katniss had originally said she liked it, until she kissed me and must not have liked how it felt. There was a small bathroom with a shower, a sink, a mirror and a toilet attached to the room and I found a brand new razor and some shaving cream sitting on the shelf in front of the mirror. It took me about twenty minutes to remove almost two years of hair growth from my face, and when I looked in the mirror after I washed my face and patted it dry, I realised that I cut years off of my appearance. The beard really did make me look older.

The command room was on an upper floor, as I learned from asking for directions, and I found my way there eventually. I wasn’t sure how to get in, but a guard told me that I could access it from a fingerprint scanner. Doing that, I was granted access to the room, and I walked in. It was a rather large metallic room with a giant table, and seated at the table were Haymitch and Carolina Abernathy, Finnick Odair, Cailean and Calum Fòlais, Beetee Latier who was with us in the arena, a couple other faces I didn’t recognise and sitting on the table, Johanna Mason. As I took in my surroundings, the door behind me opened again, and Johanna turned towards the door. “Oh look, a bunch of Mellarkies,” she said with a smirk, and I turned around to see that Donnel and Katniss had both entered.

“Hey, little bro. Glad to see you’re awake,” Donnel said, walking into the room and ruffling my hair. He sat down at the table next to Finnick. I turned back to face Katniss, who smiled at me when we locked eyes.

“I tried to visit you on my way out, but you were asleep,” she said, crossing over to me and pulling me into a tight hug, being mindful of my injured shoulder. I wrapped my free arm around her tightly and kissed the side of her head.

“That's okay, you’re here now,” I told her. She broke the hug to look at me, running a hand over my freshly shaven face.

“You’ve shaved?” she asked me.

“You like it?” I asked her.

“Peeta, I’ll love whatever you do no matter what, but I do think I prefer kissing you clean-shaven,” she replied, and she gave me a quick kiss on the lips, which was interrupted by a throat being cleared.

“May we start the meeting?” asked Haymitch.

“Yes, of course,” Katniss said, taking my hand and leading me to two empty chairs at the table.

“Are we missing anyone else?” Haymitch said.

“Don’t think so,” said Carolina.

“Good, then we can start,” Haymitch replied.

“I take it this is about the next steps, now that our campaigning in the districts has finally ended,” Katniss said, holding my hand tightly as she spoke.

“Yes, about that-” Haymitch began, but Katniss cut him off.

“Two years, Haymitch,” she said with anger. “We were supposed to do it for a couple of months, but it took  _ two years _ . This war is being dragged on for longer than it has to be and people who should have been alive today are dead because nothing is happening. No more campaigning, it’s time to bring this war to an end.”

“I’m with Katniss on that. Two years, we were separated and we were trying to rally rebels and Capitol sympathisers and all it led to was more death and a prolonged war,” I chimed in.

“Yes, that’s exactly what we’re here to discuss,” said one of the men who I didn’t recognise.

“Peeta, Katniss, Fòlaises, this is Dravius Pillock and Odeon Avisdee, Dravius is from District Three and has been leading the forces there and Odeon is from District Five and has been leading their forces,” Haymitch said, introducing the two men at the table. The man from District Three, Dravius Pillock, was maybe about fifty years old or so and I recognised him as a Hunger Games Victor, I believed from the 41st Hunger Games. The other man, Odeon Avisdee, was younger, maybe thirty-five or forty, and had won the 55th Hunger Games.

“We’re a room full of victors, save for the Fòlais twins and Miss Abernathy here,” said Dravius. “Us Victors are the ones most damaged by what the Capitol has done to the districts, so it was thought best that the leaders of the rebellion should be victors of the Hunger Games.”

“So why are we here if we aren’t victors?” asked Calum.

“Because you three have proven to be very important to our cause. And District 13 needs a representative, too,” said Odeon.

“But there isn’t a District 13 anymore,” said Cailean.

“There will be. They’ve been rebuilding while we’ve been out here building District 14,” Carolina replied.

“But the districts can’t have two leaders... can they?” Katniss asked, addressing the room.

“We thought it best if each district had the equivalence of a President and a Vice President,” said Dravius.

“So for District Twelve, it’d be you two. You two can decide who wants to be who,” Haymitch said.

“Well, what about you?” I asked Haymitch, and he shrugged.

“Not really interested,” said Haymitch.

“Neither are we,” said Katniss, and she turned to look at me. “At least, I’m not. I don’t want to be a president or a Vice President of anything.”

“Maybe temporarily, just until the rebellion ends,” I said, looking at her, and then I looked at the rest of the room. “Maybe instead of ‘president’ and ‘vice president’, it should be called something else...”

“Like a senator?” asked Finnick.

“I like that,” Katniss said.

“There’s no more Victors of District 7 alive,” Johanna said. “And I sure as hell don’t want to be a ‘senator’.”

“Take the position temporarily and appoint someone else as a senator of District Seven then,” Haymitch spat at her.

“How long is ‘temporarily’?” asked Cailean.

“However long it takes to end the war and bring down the Capitol,” said Odeon.

“So how would this new government work, then? Give each district two senators and then have a president? What about the Capitol?” asked Katniss.

“We can iron that out later, but we like the idea of having a democratic vote for the President of Panem,” said Beetee. “Like the old days, of the country that used to be here before Panem.”

“Politics has never really been my thing, and I’m sure the survivors of Twelve wouldn’t want a refugee as their representative,” Katniss said somewhat harshly. “Peeta can tell you how some people treated me in the district purely because I was a refugee.” She was right, she was treated differently and rather unfairly because of her status as a refugee. I simply nodded, remembering some of the awful things my mother had said about her, let alone the other kids at our school.

“I think you’ll find that District Twelve learned to respect you a hell of a lot more after the Games, and even more after the rebellion broke out,” Haymitch told us. “You two are the perfect image to represent District Twelve. Think about it, won’t you?”

“We can discuss it,” Katniss replied.

“We  _ will  _ discuss it,” I chimed in, and she glanced over at me.

“Good. Then we’ll reconvene next week? Dravius, Odeon, you know what you have to do. Cailean and Calum, discuss it. Carolina, find another person for Fourteen. Johanna, think about it, and find someone else. Finnick, you too, and same to you, Beetee. Now, I need a drink,” said Haymitch, standing up and heading towards the door.

“That’s a meeting adjourned, then,” said Dravius, and the two older men stood and headed out, following Haymitch out the door. The rest of us sat and stared at each other for a moment before Johanna broke the silence.

“Anyone want lunch?” she said.


	6. Chapter V: Prude and Prejudiced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta tries to get Katniss settled into their marriage, but Katniss is unsure about some of the things he’s asking of her. An accident forces the pair back to the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of sexual content mentioned!

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

I was annoyed at the very thought of being considered for leadership in the way that Haymitch and the other victors had been suggesting, and I was even more annoyed at Peeta for saying ‘we  _ will _ think about it’. Who does he think he is, trying to tell me what to do? I glanced at him, but left my face unreadable, mostly because I didn’t want to start an argument so soon after we had finally been reunited after nearly two years of being separated, but he’s not stupid. He knew I didn’t like him saying that. He quietly glanced back and me and likely saw the agitation in my eyes.

When Johanna suggested lunch, I let go of Peeta’s hand and followed the group out of the command room, Peeta lagging behind struggling to keep up with me. “Katniss!” he said, finally reaching me and grabbing my wrist. I stopped and turned to face him.

“What?” I said irritably. The rest of the group didn’t notice we’d lagged behind.

“What did I say that pissed you off?” he asked me as I pulled my wrist from his grip.

“‘We  _ will _ think about it’? Seriously? Peeta, who the  _ hell _ do you think you are? Sometimes, I can’t stand the things you say!” I said to him, and he let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” was all he said.

“Peeta, I don’t want this. I never  _ asked _ for any of this, okay? I didn’t want to be a Victor, I didn’t want to be forced to give up control of my own future, I didn’t want to be a leader of a bloody rebellion!” I snapped at him.

“I didn’t ask for this either! Wait, did you say ‘forced to give up control of your own life’? Are you talking about that damn star-crossed lovers shit the Capitol threw on us?” Apparently, it was his turn to be angry.

“That’s not what I’m referring to.”

“But it’s a part of it, isn’t it?”

“I told you I loved you, Peeta. Are you trying to tell me I didn’t mean it? That our marriage means nothing, that everything I’ve said to you and thought of you and every damn tear I shed over you for the last two years means  _ nothing _ ? Because if that’s what you’re going at, then you’d best piss off before you find yourself saying something you’ll regret.” He let out a sigh. He knew I had a tendency to be hotheaded, and he was out of practice in dealing with it. All he did instead was just chuckle, and that pissed me off even more. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re so cute when you’re angry,” he said through his laughter, and I huffed and rolled my eyes and started walking away. “Katniss!” He stopped me again, this time taking my right hand in his left, which was his uninjured shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry I upset you, but this won’t be forever. If you and I act as senators for District Twelve, all we’d be doing is the same shit we’re doing now and have been doing for the last two years.”

“Except now we’ll have to make all our decisions with District Twelve in mind,” I said back.

“District Twelve is our home, Katniss. It has a future, too.”

“It was firebombed.”

“And Hebridia was swallowed up by the ocean. But it’s people still stand. Wouldn’t you give anything to see it again?” I let out a sigh and glanced down to my feet.

“I can still smell and taste the saltwater,” I told him, and then I looked back up at him. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I don’t want us to be arguing after not seeing each for two years.”

“I don’t want that, either.”

“I’ll do the senator thing, but not forever. As soon as the rebellion is over, I want the title passed onto someone else. Talking to people is your thing, not mine.”

“That’s why there’s two of us.” He smiled gently at me, and I couldn’t resist smiling back at him.

“You know, I think I like you better without the facial hair,” I said, stepping closer to him and wrapping my arms around his neck, and he put his uninjured hand on the small of my back.

“Still wanna go to lunch?” he asked me.

“What else would we be doing?” I asked him, my voice laced with confusion.

“Could always... check out our living space,” he said, lowering his voice, and I knew exactly what he was suggesting.

“Peeta!” I hissed quietly, looking around to see if anyone else was listening. “We’re both injured still! You’re down an arm, and... and I’ve still got stitches in my side!”

“You are so naive sometimes, relax! No one’s listening,” Peeta said, teasing me. “I know our limitations. There’s still... other things...”

“I don’t know, what if either of us pop our stitches?”

“Is it really the stitches you’re worried about or are you just not ready?”

“Peeta!” I glanced around again as I felt him lean down to whisper in my ear.

“Come on, it's supposed to be fun!” Truth to be told, we haven't actually ‘consummated’ our marriage. There wasn’t time, we had to change quickly and head out to our assignments. Peeta had been pursuing that type of relationship for about six months before we were married and I wanted to, I really did... but I was nervous. What if he didn’t like me after he saw me? What if I couldn’t please him as much as I knew he could please me? The very thought of having sex with him scared me, even though I loved him dearly and and wanted him to be as happy as he made me.

“Maybe tonight,” I finally said, my chin on his shoulder and my arms holding him tightly.

“I can’t wait,” he said, kissing the side of my head.

* * *

_ It was a couple of weeks before we were due to start our missions. I knew Peeta was going to be the leader of a separate team than I was, and I knew that we would be starting on different sides of the country. I didn’t want to be separated from him. Ever since we’d arrived in District 13 almost a year before, we’d been growing closer and closer. The rebellion was in full swing now, or so we’d hoped. The goal of our mission would be to rally the districts and ignite rebellions in as many areas as possible. It should only take a few months, but even a few months was far too long to be away from my Peeta. _

_ We were sharing a room, not because we were assigned one together but because I wanted to stay with him. Prim and my adoptive mother, Agnessa, were supposed to be sharing a room with me, but I much preferred sleeping with Peeta. He was comforting, soothing, and he kept my nightmares away. On this night, we were lying in bed together facing each other, him on his left side and I on my right. He was stroking my hair, his beautiful blue eyes closed as he settled into sleep, but I knew he was still awake. _

_ “Peeta,” I whispered. _

_ “Hm?” he said sleepily. _

_ “It’ll only be a couple of months, right?” _

_ “Only a couple of months, Katniss...” he whispered to me comfortingly. _

_ “But what if it’s not?” _

_ “It won’t be.” _

_ “But what if it is?” He paused. _

_ “Then I guess we’ll just have to deal with it.” _

_ “I can’t stand the idea of being away from you for so long...” Almost every night for the past year, we’d shared his bed. I didn’t even like being apart from him during our daily schedules and as soon as we were reunited at meals, I would hug him tightly and hold him until he reminded me that we didn’t have long to eat. At night after meals, when the day was finally over, I would hold him for what felt like hours, never wanting to let him go. I loved him so much. I couldn’t lose him. _

_ “I’ll make sure that we find our way back together,” he told me. “Get some sleep, okay? We’ve got a long and rather boring meeting to attend tomorrow.” We both shared a gentle chuckle, and I nodded. He pushed himself up on his elbow to kiss me and then he turned out the light, allowing me to snuggle up beside him so he could wrap an arm around my shoulders. It felt like an eternity had passed before I spoke again. _

_ “Peeta?” I asked into the darkness. _

_ “What is it, Katniss?” he whispered back to me. I had butterflies in my stomach, knowing what I was going to ask of him and fearing the answer. What if he didn’t want to? What if this was all he wanted from me and nothing more? I calmed my mind, trying my best not to overthink something that should be so simple to two people who are in love. _

_ “Can we get married?” I heard him take a sharp intake of breath and I felt his weight on the pillow shift - he must have picked up his head to look at me, even though we could hardly see more than a silhouette in the darkness. _

_ “You... you want to marry me?” he asked. _

_ “Yes, I do,” I replied. “I love you, Peeta... I don’t know what the future is going to bring for us. The way I see it, this rebellion can go either way. If we lose, we’ll be killed. But if we win, and we aren’t killed in the process...” _

_ “Then we’ll have the rest of our lives together,” he whispered. _

_ “Yes.” He paused for a moment, possibly wondering if my feelings for him were real and if I really did want to marry him. _

_ “Of course I’ll marry you,” he whispered into the night, and I felt his weight shift again as he leaned over me and kissed me deeply, one hand holding my face and the other starting to roam my body. “I love you so much,” he whispered. I felt his hand start to slide up underneath my shirt. _

_ “Peeta, big boring meeting tomorrow,” I reminded him, and he first let out a sigh and then a chuckle. _

_ “You’re right, we should get some sleep,” he said, and he kissed me one final time before we fell into a deep slumber. _

* * *

**PEETA POV**  


* * *

I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed by her seemingly uninterested opinion on us being intimate together, but I didn’t push her. When she was ready, she would come to me, just like she told me she would when I started pursuing an intimate relationship with her.  _ “Only if you promise me your exact words will be, ‘Peeta, I’m ready to do the sex with you’ _ , I’d told her. It was a joke, of course, but I half expected those exact words to come out of her mouth when she was ready.

It didn’t happen that night, and that was okay. We’d gotten to the point where my shirt was off and I had started to pull hers off when she stopped me. “Please, the stitches are hideous,” she’d said.

“Honey, I’ve got them, too,” I told her, reminding her of the stitches underneath the bandages covering my shoulder.

“I know... I just... I don’t think I’m ready yet...” was her final word, and I let out a sigh.

“It’s okay,” I told her, giving her a quick peck on the lips. I leaned down to pick up my shirt when I felt her hand on my arm.

“Peeta... you don’t have to put your shirt back on, if it’s difficult with... your shoulder and all...” she said.

“Well, I appreciate that, but I can’t walk around shirtless forever,” I replied.

“Shut up and just come here,” she said, and I set down my shirt on the bed and crawled in next to her, holding her with my uninjured arm. It was our first night together in almost two years, and I could finally sleep knowing that Katniss was safe and in my arms, which was exactly where she belonged. We both slept very soundly that night, and when I woke up around six in the morning, I smiled at the image of her sleeping beside me, beautiful and angelic like the goddess she was. I turned onto my side so that I could kiss her awake and she smiled at me and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

“ _ Madainn mhath, mo ghaol _ ,” she told me in Gàidhlig, and I looked at her with a confused expression.

“What was that?” I asked her, and she smiled.

“Sorry, _ cho sgìth _ ... so tired... I said ‘good morning, my love,” she replied sleepily. Sometimes, in moments when Katniss couldn’t think clearly, she spoke in the language she was born speaking, which was Gàidhlig.

“You promised me you were gonna teach me some of your language. When are you gonna do that?” I asked her.

“They were offering classes at Thirteen, if you remember,” she told me, lightly tapping my nose with her finger. “Up you get, I’ve got to pee.” I let her up so that she could go into the small bathroom attached to the room, and when she came out, I was dressed only in my underwear trying to pick a pair of pants in the dresser. I looked up at her and smiled, and she blushed considerably and tried to look away.

“You’re married to me, Katniss. You’re gonna have to see me in my underwear at some point,” I told her. “Or in even less.” I winked at her, and she giggled and blushed even more.

“Will you take the shower first or will I?” she asked me.

“I might need help, I’m down an arm,” I told her, using what she said to me yesterday, and she blushed even more.

“I... I’m... sure you’ll be... fine...” she said.

“I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty sore,” I said, now getting cocky. “Come on, it’ll be-”

“ _ Peeta! _ ” she snapped, taking me aback. “I’m just not ready. I’m sorry. If you really need help, I can see if Cailean or Calum or even your brother can help you or something. I think I’ll just go and shower in the public showers.” She came over to the dresser and opened some drawers to pull some clothes out and I grabbed her wrist.

“Katniss, I’m sorry. Please don’t run off,” I said to her.

“I’m not running off, I’m showering in the public showers,” she told me, freeing her wrist and leaving our room, and I let out a sigh, feeling like an absolute idiot. I knew she wasn’t ready, but I just kept pushing her and pushing her. As much as I wanted to be intimate, I wanted to keep her close to me and feeling comfortable around me more. I wouldn’t be pushing her anymore. When she’s ready, she’ll come to me.

It turned out, I didn’t even need help in the shower. I pulled off the sling and the bandages so they wouldn’t get wet and just held my injured arm close to my body so it wouldn’t move. I didn’t know how long I was in the shower for, but it felt like hours. A nice warm shower felt so good after being out in the wilderness and constantly being on the run for almost two years. I was finally able to bathe in peace, and as I started to relax, I didn’t realise that my bar of soap had slipped from its cubby, and as I stepped back, I slipped on it and fell in the shower with a loud crash onto my left shoulder. At first, it didn’t hurt, and I was more disoriented than anything, but when I saw blood dripping down my right arm, I knew that I was in trouble. I tried to push myself up, but my left shoulder gave out and I fell back down onto the floor with pain emanating from my left shoulder. Now I was in trouble. I couldn’t get up, my stitches had popped and I was all alone.

Suddenly, I heard the door to our room open. “Katniss? Is that you?” I called.

“Yes, Peeta,” she replied.

“I need your help!” I called to her.

“Sure you do,” she replied sarcastically.

“No, I’m serious, Katniss, I need your help! I fell and I can’t get up and my shoulder’s bleeding!” I said. I thought I heard her say something, but over the water, I couldn’t hear it. What I did hear was the bathroom door opening and saw Katniss’s face appear in the glass shower door.

“Peeta!” she cried, opening the door to the shower and shutting off the water before kneeling down beside me. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I? What happened?”

“I don’t know, I slipped and fell and it’s so damn small in here and my other shoulder hurts now,” I told her, and she quickly examined it.

“That’s because it’s dislocated. It’ll be all right, simple fix, but let’s get you up first,” she said, and she grabbed an extra towel and set it on the floor of the shower so I wouldn’t slip again. I nodded as I watched her do this, and when she looked back at me, she paused. “I’m... sorry I was being such a prude... Seeing you naked is really not as big of a deal as I thought...”

“What, did you think I was ugly underneath my clothes?” I said in a teasing tone, and she smiled gently and chuckled.

“No, but I’ve never seen a... er... well, I’ve never seen a naked man before... but I suppose you’re right, I really do need to get comfortable with seeing you undressed,” she replied, and she leaned down to give me a kiss.

“Like what you see?” I whispered to her when she pulled back.

“Peeta, it’s you. Of course I like what I see,” she replied. “Now help me out here, you’re heavier than I am and I’m not as strong as I seem like I am.” I did as I was told and helped her to help me stand by putting all my strength into my legs while she wrapped her arms around my torso and pulled me to stand. “Right, fixing a dislocated shoulder isn’t very difficult, but you might want to keep it in a sling at least for today.”

“And lose both arms? That doesn’t sound like fun,” I replied.

“Tell everyone it’s my fault, because it is,” she told me as she positioned her hands on my arms.

“Katniss, it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have been pushing you and- AGH!” I let out a cry of pain as I felt her shoving my shoulder back into its socket and heard the crack of the bones as they adjusted. “That hurt!”

“I didn’t say it would feel good,” she told me. “Let’s get you dressed, we’ve got to get you back to the hospital to get those stitches fixed.” She took my face in her hands and kissed me again and led me, still naked, out of the bathroom and helped me with my underwear, pants and shoes. The shirt she left off and just wrapped a towel around my shoulders and instructed me to hold it closed. “Don’t want to get blood on your shirts,” she said to me, and she walked me to the hospital.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**  


* * *

I felt horrible. Peeta was injured all because I had to be such a foolish prude and I was afraid of seeing him naked. He wasn’t going to try to touch me in the shower - he knew how I felt and wasn’t going to push me. All he was doing was teasing me. Now I don’t know why I was so afraid, he looked incredible. He was strong, muscular, and I can’t deny that one look at his manhood made my insides tingle. He was an incredibly attractive man and I was the lucky girl who was married to him. Even though I wasn’t ready for sex, perhaps I could at least meet him halfway. Maybe I could let him take off my shirt, or my trousers, or even my undergarments... I shook those thoughts from my mind. I had to get Peeta to the hospital.

As I led him to the elevator that would take us to the hospital, we ran into Gale, who stepped into the elevator on the next stop. “What happened to him?” Gale asked, addressing me and ignoring Peeta. I noticed Peeta’s blood was soaking through the towel.

“I fell in the shower this morning,” Peeta replied, drawing Gale’s attention to him.

“Fell in the shower?” Gale asked me, turning his attention back to me. I could see in his eyes that he was asking what on Earth was happening in the shower that caused Peeta to fall, and I only nodded. When the elevator got Gale’s stop, Gale stormed out of it and strode away angrily, and I just chuckled gently.

“What’s he mad about?” Peeta asked me.

“He thinks we had sex in the shower and that’s why you fell,” I told him.

“And you let him think that? Why?” asked Peeta.

“Because seeing him angry with jealousy towards you is amusing,” I replied, and the elevator stopped at the hospital.

“Remind me to ask about that later,” Peeta said as the doors opened and we strode out. The lady at the front desk looked up at us.

“You two again?” she asked us.

“We had a little accident in the shower,” I told her.

“I slipped and fell,” Peeta chimed in.

“Can they look at his other shoulder, too? It was dislocated, but I corrected it,” I said. When they brought him back, I gave him a kiss and told him I’d be waiting right there in the waiting area, and a few minutes later, the medic who took Peeta back approached me.

“That’s the best corrected dislocation I’ve seen in a shoulder. Do you have any medical training?” he asked me.

“I served as a medic on our mission for the last two years and before that, I was apprenticing as a midwife in our district since I was fourteen,” I replied.

“Interesting. Why don’t you come on back with me?” he asked, and though confused, I agreed and followed. I didn’t want to be involved in medical care, however, I was always drawn to it. Once when I was at the Hobb, a woman went into labour when I was thirteen. The Seam’s midwife was occupied at another birth, and I had remembered some training from when my mother had been alive. Eilidh Fòlais was an obstetrician and dealt with pregnancy and babies on the daily, and when I was old enough, she allowed me to assist her. I was only assisting her for about eight months before she died. I was able to safely deliver the baby in the Hobb shortly before the midwife arrived and she was impressed, and asked me to apprentice under her. I wanted to say no, but after that rather public incident, I felt that I couldn’t say no, so I then started training. She taught me other things, too, such as how to correct a dislocated shoulder. The medic brought me into the room where he was examining Peeta, and he looked up at me with confusion as to why I was there. “Tell me, Mrs. Mellark, have you ever done stitches?” Peeta’s eyes darted to me and widened.

“I have. Not often but I’ve done it,” I replied. “I had to stitch up a wound on my hand about... eight months ago?”

“I’d like to see you stitch this back up. Whoever stitched it last time didn’t do a very good job,” said the medic.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” asked Peeta with concern in his voice, and he looked at me. “Not that I’m saying you’ll do a bad job! You took great care of me in the arena... and in that abandoned factory in Eight...” His face suddenly relaxed and he smiled gently at me. “I trust you.” I smiled at him and put a hand on his shoulder, then looked back up at the medic.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked him.

“I treated your brother and he told me you’re incredibly skilled at healing,” said the medic.

“Very well,” I said. The medic gave me all the proper equipment, except something to numb the pain. “Don’t you have any morphling or something? Just a little bit to cut the pain?” Peeta’s expression turned worrisome again and he looked at the medic.

“We have limited supplies, I’m afraid,” he said.

“What about coolant spray? It numbs the skin so he won’t feel the needle,” I said.

“The needle?” Peeta asked, looking at me.

“Yes, Peeta, how do you think you close a wound?” I asked him, and turned my attention back to the medic.

“Hmm... that we do have,” he said, fetching it from a cabinet.

“I’ll put you in charge of that. Make sure you spray it when he starts feeling pain,” I told him.

“I’m still here, you both know, right?” Peeta asked us, not exactly liking that he was going to be treated without pain relief.

“Shh, trust me, you’ll be okay,” I told him. The medic sprayed on the coolant spray and I started stitching up the wound in Peeta’s shoulder while he looked away and tried not to panic. I finished stitching the wound in about seven minutes, and Peeta was still tense until I placed a hand on his shoulder. “All done,” I told him as I started bandaging his shoulder again.

“Already?” he asked, loosening up, and I nodded.

“Let’s get you back and put a shirt on you,” I told him, leaning down to kiss his forehead.

“That was very impressive work, Mrs. Mellark. We could really use you here,” said the medic, and I thought for a second. Haymitch was asking me to be a senator, this medic was asking me to help out in the hospital and Peeta was asking me to be his wife. I was starting to think that I was biting off more than I could chew.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him, and I left the hospital.


	7. Chapter VI: The Mentor and the Advisor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta goes to Haymitch for advice. A rough draft of the senate meets to discuss who is agreeing to be involved. Peeta and Katniss tease each other in their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sexual content mentioned, but not featured.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

The meeting that we were supposed to have to decide on a senate had to be postponed due to leaders having to fight off larger forces of the Capitol, so it was postponed until next week, which gave Katniss and I a bit more time to think over our decision to represent District Twelve. We were both healing quickly, too. She had her stitches taken out about eight days after she received them and mine came out the following day. Katniss had been in the science lab giving the formula for a tracker jacker antivenom that her father had started and she had finished in Thirteen when I surprised her by sneaking up behind her and hugging her with both arms.

“Peeta! Your shoulder!” she exclaimed, her eyes filled with concern and her hand jumping to my shoulder.

“All better!” I said. “Well, mostly. I still need to be easy on it for a little bit longer, but those painful treatments really do speed up the process!” She turned around in my arms and hugged me tightly, and with both arms, I finally held her properly for the first time in nearly two years.

We still hadn’t made much progress as far as intimacy went, either. She let me take off her shirt, but she wouldn’t let me touch her, save for her back and her stomach, but I wasn’t going to push her. But now that I knew I had time, I realised that perhaps I could go to someone for advice. I thought about going to Donnel, but Donnel didn’t really have any experience with women. Or at least, no experience with women that he loved. And besides, he’d gone off to help fend off a Capitol attack in District Three. I thought about going to Cailean or Calum, but they were a year younger than me and I felt strange going to someone younger than me for relationship advice, especially when my relationship was with their sister. I thought about asking Finnick, too, since he’d been with Annie clearly and they even had a two-year-old son, Killick, and Annie was pregnant again, too. But when I went to ask him, I found that he was very happily engrossed in his little family and I didn’t want to disturb him, so I went to the only person I knew I could trust with giving me advice.

“You want help with _what_?” Haymitch asked me, shocked that I’d even asked such a thing.

“Trying to have an intimate relationship with Katniss. Getting into it, getting her comfortable with it... what to do...” I was already freaked out enough to have to ask Haymitch for help, and his judgemental tone wasn’t helping.

“You mean to tell me that all that time you two were sleeping together, you two didn’t touch each other _once_?” he asked me.

“No,” I replied.

“Have you made any progress?”

“She’s seen me naked in the shower, when I fell and had to go back to the hospital for new stitches... and I’ve seen her just in her bra, but she had her pants on.” I cringed as I explained it. Katniss and I had been in an active relationship since the Quarter Quell, when she first told me she loved me. That’s was now three years ago, and we’ve barely been intimate.

“That’s it?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Right,” said Haymitch as he processed what I’ve said.

“Look, I didn’t come to you to be judged-”

“I ain’t judging you, boy. Have you been asking? What’s she said?”

“Mostly that she’s not ready. Every time I think we’re getting close, she freaks out and gets upset. I don’t want to upset her, but I want to _be_ with her. And I don’t know how to do that.”

“Have you tried letting her come to you?”

“I’ve told her to come to me when she’s ready, but that’s about it.”

“Sometimes, simple tricks work. Try tempting her. You’re a good-looking guy, and I’m sure she knows that. Maybe spend more time without your shirt in your room, tell her you’re warm.”

“Is that how you won over Carolina’s mom?” Haymitch chuckled and shook his head.

“Nah. She was ready before I was, actually. I was still holding onto my first love.”

“Have you thought about finding more love?” He shook his head.

“Don’t need it. I got my daughter now, she’s all I need to keep me going. Someone’s gotta protect her.” I nodded gently, realising that Haymitch was a better father than I would have thought.

“When did you know about her?” I asked suddenly.

“Boy, ain’t you here about sex?”

“Yes, but now I want to know more about you and what you’ve been through,” I told the older man, and he let out a sigh, taking a swig of his drink.

“I didn’t. I mean, her mother told me she thought she was pregnant but she didn’t know for sure. I sent her away to go to where we thought District Thirteen was. I didn’t know if it was really there, and neither did she, but we both knew that whatever fate she met out there was better than what would have happened to her in the district because of what I did in my Games. I lost everyone, boy. My parents, my sisters, my girl... anyone and everyone close to me, gone.” He looked sad and distant, and I couldn’t blame him. He’d had everything taken away from him, and there was nothing he could do except to succumb to loneliness because he didn’t want that happening to anyone else who dared get close to him. “Why do you think I was always so nasty to you and the girl? I didn’t wanna risk what happened to them happening to you, even though I was sure it wouldn’t. And then we went to District Thirteen. I asked if they’d heard of a Sabina Donahue, and they said she’d died in a Pox outbreak. But then they told me she had a daughter. When I met that girl for the first time, she was already sixteen years old and the most beautiful girl I’d ever set my eyes on. She looked like her mother - still looks like her mother. I fell in love with that kid the minute I set eyes on her, and I swear I’ll kill anyone that tries to take her away from me.” He looked up at me and met my eyes. “Now enough about me. Do you know what you’re doing?”

“With sex? Kind of...” I said, a little stunned that I got pulled from the rather serious conversation Haymitch and I had been having.

“Don’t just jump into it. Foreplay is your best friend. Touch her, feel her up, make that girl crave you and beg for you. That’s always the best part.”

“Touch her how?”

“Her tits. Down between her legs, there’s a little bean that makes girls feel good. Lick it, flick it. You get the same results. Kinda like how our hands make us feel. You know what I’m talking about.” I gulped slightly and nodded. I did know what he was talking about. “Nipples, too. They like that.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing all of this coming out of your mouth,” I confessed.

“And yet, here you are,” Haymitch told me. “But don’t rush things or you’ll both suffer, or worse, you’ll lose her. And I know you don’t want that. She’ll come around. Be irresistible to her.” He winked at me, then sat back in his chair and took another swig of his alcohol. Maybe I should have just stuck to my instincts. “Oh, and before I forget.” He reached into his pocket and tossed a pack of a bunch of plastic squares at me and I caught them.

“What’s this?” I asked him.

“Condoms. Now ain’t the time to get her pregnant, boy.” I must have blushed a bit because Haymitch let out a deep belly laugh and resumed his drinking.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

I received a document stating the names of senators from each district. Some had question marks, many did not. Districts One and Two were both blank, as those districts had not been won over yet. I took a look at it and read the names.

**DISTRICT ONE**

_______________

_______________

**DISTRICT TWO**

_______________

_______________

**DISTRICT THREE**

Dravius Pillock 

Beetee Latier 

**DISTRICT FOUR**

Finnick Odair 

Annie Odair (?) 

**DISTRICT FIVE**

Odeon Avisdee 

Clarabella Dustin 

**DISTRICT SIX**

Ellorah Harpernet 

Gladius Firk 

**DISTRICT SEVEN**

Johanna Mason (?) 

_______________

**DISTRICT EIGHT**

Karis Paylor 

Zosia Verity 

**DISTRICT NINE**

Pascasia Mazarinne 

Tremor Ureon (?) 

**DISTRICT TEN**

Lystra Eshwater (?) 

Rufus Ripley 

**DISTRICT ELEVEN**

Cytherea Lewes 

Kypp Jecker (?) 

**DISTRICT TWELVE**

Katniss Mellark (?) 

Peeta Mellark (?) 

**DISTRICT THIRTEEN**

Calum Fòlais 

Gale Hawthorne 

**DISTRICT FOURTEEN**

Carolina Abernathy 

Weaver Redstone 

I couldn’t help but gasp at some of the name choices on that list. To go from least to most shocking, I was first surprised to see Annie’s name on the list. It was known that Annie Cresta, Victor of the 70th Hunger Games, had lost her mind after witnessing her District partner being decapitated, and only survived because she was the best swimmer out of all of them. I remembered her games well. It didn’t surprise me at all to see that Johanna had a question mark by her name and that she still hadn’t found someone else from District Seven to represent the district in this so-called senate. I was also surprised to see only Calum’s name listed for Thirteen, but it made sense - Cailean hated dealing with people almost as much as I did, if not more, and probably asked Calum to find someone else to represent Thirteen in the senate. But perhaps the most shocking of all was who else was representing Thirteen.

Gale. He’d only been in Thirteen for the same amount of time I had, maybe a week or two more. What gave him the right to represent Thirteen? I was sure there’d be an uproar. Why would anyone who once lived in Thirteen want someone from District Twelve to represent them? But there was no uproar. In fact, when the survivors of Thirteen that wanted to go back once it was rebuilt learned who was representing them, they cheered and were happy. Why? I’ll never know. “I can’t believe this,” I muttered to Cailean in Gàidhlig. “Why would Calum let _him_ of all people represent Thirteen?”

“Because no one else wanted to,” Cailean replied, also in Gàidhlig. “He renounced his District Twelve citizenship for this. He’s now legally a citizen of District Thirteen.” I was pissed, and Peeta could sense that as he watched Cailean and I speak rather coldly in our native language.

“I take it you’re mad about...” he said, trailing off. He knew why we were speaking in Gàidhlig. “What happened? You two were so close.”

“A lot. I’ll tell you later,” I told him. Now that the senators were, for the most part, selected, it was now time for them to meet here in District Fourteen. There were twenty-eight seats in total for all fourteen districts, but only twenty-three were filled. Districts One and Two’s seats were empty, of course, as was the second seat for District Seven.

“Johanna,” said Haymitch, who was simply there to help form the senate. He was more of an advisor, so to speak. “You were supposed to find someone else to represent your district with you.”

“I don’t even _want_ this. Why would I want to throw that on someone else?” Johanna whined. She was twenty-four now, but was acting like she was twelve.

“I don’t want this either, Johanna, but the sooner we bring this rebellion to an end, the sooner we can pass off this position to someone else, so help us out and just deal with it until it’s over,” I said sternly to her, and she glared at me. Boy, if looks could kill. 

“Good to see you’re dedicated to the cause, Twelve,” Gale said to the room rather loudly.

“Last I checked, my name wasn’t Twelve,” I said back to him.

“Behave, children,” said Haymitch. ”Now, most of you are Victors of the Hunger Games, some of you are not. But today, we need those of you with question marks by your names to decide if you’re in or you’re out. That is the purpose of this meeting.”

“I’m in,” Peeta said to Haymitch, kicking off the discussion.

“I like your enthusiasm, boy,” Haymitch said, and he went to a whiteboard, uncapped a marker, and wrote ‘4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 12’ all up on the board, and then erased one of the twelves. “Now as for the rest of you. In or out? We’ll start with Four.” All eyes turned to Annie, who nervously looked around the room. She leaned into Finnick and whispered something into his ear, and he cleared his throat.

“Annie says that she does not feel like an adequate choice for a senator to represent District Four so I’ll be searching for another representative,” he said.

“Excellent, thank you, Annie, for your prompt decision. Seven?” said Haymitch, turning to Johanna.

“Pass,” she said.

“Gotta make up your mind, kid,” said Haymitch.

“Come back to me, then,” Johanna hissed at him, and he moved on.

“Nine?” he said, turning to Tremor Ureon. I recognised him as the victor of the 60th Hunger Games. “How’s the wheat business?”

“Funny,” said Tremor. “I’ve given it some thought and have decided that... yes, I will represent District Nine as a senator.”

“Good choice, moving on. Ten?” said Haymitch, erasing the nine on the board and looking at Lystra Eshwater.

“My home was destroyed in the recent bombing of District Ten, and along with it went my husband and my three beautiful daughters. For this, I have a personal vendetta against President Snow so I vote yes, I will represent District Ten as a senator,” said Lystra.

“Excellent, excellent,” said Haymitch, erasing the ten from the board. “Eleven?” He turned to Kypp Jecker, who wasn’t a known victor of the games.

“Little Rue was my best friend’s daughter. So I will represent District Eleven as a senator in her memory,” said Kypp, and I could feel Peeta squeezing my hand under the table at the mention of Rue’s name.

“Now,” said Haymitch, erasing the eleven and then looking at me. “That leaves you, sweetheart.” I looked around at all of the eyes staring at me, and then looked next to me at Peeta, who was tightly holding my hand and giving me his strength. I then looked over at Gale, who looked as if he was disappointed in me, and then at Haymitch, who was waiting for an answer, and then finally, at Johanna, who had yet to make up her mind.

“I came to District Twelve as a refugee a long time ago... Some have thought that perhaps I wouldn’t be a good representative for Twelve because of my status as a refugee. Their reasoning was that my heart didn’t belong to Twelve, it belonged to my homeland of Hebridia. But that isn’t necessarily true. It was also thought that I don’t believe in the cause, that all I wanted was for Peeta and I to survive and be together, and yes, that’s partially true, but not all.” I paused for a moment as I gathered my thoughts. “I never wanted children so long as the Games were around. Killing our children was too harsh of a punishment. Children are innocent and they’ve done nothing that the Capitol has accused them of and is punishing them for. All of us here that were once in the Games knows what that is like. So I don’t want to fight this rebellion for me because I may not live to see the end of it. I want to fight the rebellion for the future children of Panem, so I declare that yes...” I locked eyes with Haymitch. “I will represent District Twelve in the senate.” I felt Peeta squeeze my hand again as Haymitch nodded and erased the twelve from the board, leaving only Districts Four and Seven. He then turned to Johanna again, not saying a word.

“Oh, very well... I guess I’ll fight for the future of Panem. I don’t ever want to see those damned Games again,” she said, agreeing to join the senate to represent District Seven.

“Excellent,” said Haymitch. “Excellent, excellent... We’ll reconvene in a few days to hopefully decide on what to do with Districts One and Two. I don’t think it’s wise if we try to make decisions when Four and Seven don’t have their full representatives. So Odair, Mason, your jobs are to find another representative for each of your districts. This meeting is adjourned, for now.” All around me, representatives from various districts got up and approached other districts, giving their greetings and chatting amongst each other. Some got up to leave as well, and some stayed seated. I decided to stand, and so did Peeta, and we both turned to leave, we were stopped by one of the senators from District Eight.

“I never thanked you for what you did for us back in District Eight, Mellark,” she said to me, holding out her hand for me to shake, which I did. “If your ground unit did not start evacuating the hospital when they did, we might have lost so many more lives.”

“You must be Commander Paylor,” I said to her, and she smiled.

“Please, call me Karis,” she said, and then she turned to Peeta. “Your efforts don’t go unnoticed either, Mr. Mellark. You didn’t even know what you were walking into in Eight and yet you helped us when we needed help most.” She held out her hand and he took it to shake.

“It was an honour serving beside you, Commander,” he said with a smile.

“I look forward to future meetings where we decide the future of rebellion. The future of Panem is in our hands, and it has a lot to thank both of you for,” said Paylor, and with a final smile, she left. I turned to look at Peeta.

“I didn’t go overboard, did I? With my speech?” I asked him.

“Not at all. You were brilliant. See? You can talk to people,” he said with a smile.

“Only because you’re rubbing off on me,” I responded, and I felt a tap on my shoulder and found myself face to face with Kypp Jecker.

“Miss Everdeen, we never got to thank you personally for what you did for Rue during your Games,” he said. “She was like a daughter to me, that beautiful girl. When her father died, I stepped in to help her mother with caring for the children. I was heartbroken when she got reaped.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t send her home,” was all I could muster to say.

“She died for the future of Panem. Had she lived and you died, we’d be sitting in the same vicious circle we’d been in for seventy-five years. You, _both_ of you, were the spark that the rebellion needed,” said Kypp, taking my hands in his, and he brought them to his lips to kiss them. “The future Panem will not forget Rue, or the sacrifice of every other tribute who was ever condemned to that arena. Thank you, both, for all that you’ve done for us.” We gave each other one final smile before he went on his way. As he walked away, I felt a tear in my eye, and I felt Peeta’s thumb wipe it away from my cheek.

“See? You mean more to the people of this rebellion than anyone else does,” he told me, and I smiled at him.

“Let’s get out of here before anyone else stops me and I lose control of my emotions,” I said to him, and we started out, only to be blocked by Gale.

“That was a good speech,” he’d said before we could escape. “Very inspirational. Did he write it for you?” I resisted the urge to punch him in the throat.

“She came up with that on her own, actually, now if you’ll excuse us, we have someplace better to be than in your shadow,” Peeta told him, and he took me by the shoulders and led me away from Gale, who I glared at over my shoulder. “You’re gonna have to tell me what the hell happened between you two because I don’t understand why he’s suddenly turned so nasty towards you, and if he makes another comment like that again, I’ll punch him in the face.”

“Way ahead of you,” I said angrily. “I’ll tell you when I’m not pissed off.”

“It’s okay, he’s just trying to rile you up,” Peeta told me, and he pulled me into his arms. “You hungry? It’s nearly lunchtime now.” I nodded, and I took his hand and followed him to the cafeteria.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

We got our trays of food and sat down at a table and were shortly joined by Calum and Cailean, who each picked a side of Katniss to stand on.

“ _Dè tha dol, a phiuthar bheag?_ ” said Cailean to Katniss in their Gàidhlig language.

“ _Chan mise do phiuthar bheag, tha mi nas sine na thusa,_ ” she said back. I sat there in confusion having no idea what was going on between the siblings.

“ _An toil leat do brot?_ ” asked Calum.

“ _Carson a tha thu a’ cur cheistean gòrach orm?_ ” she asked her brothers.

“ _Bha thu a’ coimhead cuideam,_ ” said Cailean. I cleared my throat, reminding them that I was sitting right beside them.

“Sorry, they’re being idiots,” Katniss replied. “They were asking me stupid questions so I asked them why and their response was that I looked stressed.”

“You did look stressed,” said Calum.

“Very stressed,” said Cailean. “Of course I wouldn’t know because I wasn’t there, but Calum told me.”

“I’m fine, _amadan_ ,” she replied, trying to eat her soup in peace.

“It’s Gale, isn’t it?” asked Calum, more to me than her, and I nodded. “I thought you two were friends?”

“Not for a while,” said Cailean.

“ _Na toir iomradh air, mas e do thoil e._ I am not in the mood to relive it,” she said to him. I raised a hand to gently rub her back.

“I promise not to do anything stupid if you tell me,” I told her.

“Oh trust me, you’ll do something stupid,” she replied. My heart sank just a bit, wondering what on Earth Gale Hawthorne did to my Katniss while I wasn’t around to protect her. She must have felt my hand tense up, so she looked at me and placed a hand on my thigh.

“It’s fine. _I’m_ fine. Don’t worry about it,” she told me.

“I’m gonna worry about it until you tell me what happened,” I told her. Based on how secretive she was being about it, one could have guessed he raped her. I was sure that that wasn’t what happened, but the very thought of that happening infuriated me. I must have looked angry, because she then kissed my cheek.

“I’ll tell you soon, I promise. Eat your soup, before it goes cold,” she said. She glanced up and paused for a moment, and I brought my eyes in the direction she was looking in, but I saw nothing unordinary there.

“What are you looking at?” I asked her.

“Nothing, you’ll think I’m crazy,” she said as she took another bite of her soup.

“You married me, I already think you’re crazy. What’d you see?” I prodded, but she wouldn’t budge. She just shook her head.

“I thought about how I want to go hunting, but then I realised we’re underwater,” she told me. A little bit later, as we were getting ready for bed, I was brushing my teeth while Katniss was sitting on the bed updating her list of senators.

“Katniss, why did you start lying to me?” I suddenly asked her, looking at my reflection in the mirror. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her look up at me.

“Is this about what I was looking at earlier in the cafeteria?” she asked, and I nodded. “I wasn’t lying to be secretive, I didn’t want my brothers to know. It just seemed weird to me, and I didn’t want to mention it out loud.”

“So what’d you see?” I asked her again.

“It was an old woman, who looked at me with mischievous-looking eyes and held her finger to her lips as if shushing me and swearing me into secrecy. She was wearing a bright pink dress and she easily looked about... oh, I don’t know... seventy? Eighty years old?” she said, and I spit into the sink and washed my mouth out with water.

“Maybe you are crazy,” I said to her with a teasing tone, and she laughed.

“Am not! I swear! I thought I was going crazy, though. Can you see why I didn’t want to tell my brothers? Only you’re allowed to think I’m crazy and get away with it, Peeta,” she told me as I exited the bathroom and smiled at her.

“And I definitely do,” I replied. I thought back to my conversation with Haymitch, which had been the day before, and recalled what he’d said. _“Try tempting her. You’re a good-looking guy, and I’m sure she knows that. Maybe spend more time without your shirt in your room, tell her you’re warm.”_ I nonchalantly stretched and then pulled my shirt off over my head. “Right, time for bed. I’m exhausted.” I crossed the room to the bed and noticed her looking at me suspiciously. “What?”

“You took your shirt off,” she said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “It’s warm in here.”

“Peeta, we’re in the middle of the ocean in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, it’s easily sixty-five degrees in this room alone. What are you talking about ‘warm’?” She was onto me.

“I guess we feel temperature differently. Maybe what’s cold to you is a bit warm to me.” I could sometimes be such a terrible, unconvincing liar.

“Oh really. So the goosebumps on your arms and your hard nipples are a sign that you’re feeling warm?” She was calling me out. I tried to hide the blushing in my cheeks. I wasn’t going to let her win this one.

“Haven’t you heard? That’s a sign of being warm in men, now scoot over,” I told her, and she shook her head and chuckled to herself while she scooted over on the bed so I could crawl under the covers beside her. She snuggled up beside me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you nice and warm,” she said, and she kissed my cheek.

“You know what would make me warm?” I asked her. “A good and proper kiss. I don’t think you kissed me today.”

“I definitely did this morning before we went off to whatever we were assigned to do,” she said.

“Hmm, it must not have been very memorable then,” I said in a teasing tone, and she giggled and sat up on her elbows, taking my face in her hands and kissing me on the lips.

“That memorable enough for you?” she asked me in a hushed whisper.

“Did you kiss me? I don’t remember.” She playfully smacked my arm and then kissed me again, this time deeper and longer. “Mmm, much better.”

“Get more sleep, _amaideach_. I love you,” she whispered to me, kissing me a third time.

“I love you, too,” I whispered back, and she snuggled up to me, her hand slowly rubbing my bare chest until it stopped, signalling that she had fallen asleep. I took a bit longer to fall asleep, and I was smiling to myself. It might not be a full step, but it’s a step in the right direction. Haymitch’s advice was always the best.


	8. Chapter VII: To Lead A Revolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss does some research on the history of Panem before it was Panem and presents her research to the Senate. A mysterious old woman has a story to tell her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor spoilers for Songbirds and Snakes at the very end.
> 
> ‘Leaving On A Jetplane’ — Peter, Paul and Mary

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

_I didn’t know where I was. It looked like the inside of a Capitol hovercraft. Peeta. My first thoughts fell to Peeta. Where was Peeta? What happened to Peeta? Is Peeta all right? Peeta? I lay on a hospital bed and searched around me, finding an empty syringe. Yes. Peeta. The Capitol couldn’t hurt him if he was dead. I had to find Peeta, had to save Peeta from the Capitol. They could have me, but they couldn’t have Peeta. I got up and stumbled my way to a door. Inside I heard voices, and I thought I heard them mention Peeta’s name. Peeta? They were going to hurt Peeta. I couldn’t let them, couldn’t let them, had to stop them. I pushed the button to open the door and stumbled in holding the syringe like a knife, growling at everyone in the room. I felt a hand grab my wrist that was holding the syringe and my other hand was restrained._

_“So it’s a girl with a syringe against the Capitol, eh? Drop it, sweetheart,” came Haymitch’s voice, and I did. I dropped the syringe. The syringe that could have saved Peeta from the Capitol._

_“Peeta?” I asked him, looking into his face._

_“He’s all right, sweetheart. Just resting. You both took a pretty big hit from that lightning. You should go and lie back down, we’ll be there soon,” Haymitch told me._

_“Peeta...” was all I could say._

_“She’s in shock,” came Finnick’s voice, and I looked over at him._

_“Peeta?” I asked again, and Finnick stood up and walked over to me, taking my hands in his._

_“He’s all right, Katniss. He’ll be okay,” Finnick said to me._

_“Peeta... Peeta...” I couldn’t say anything else. I could think, at least somewhat clearly, but I couldn’t speak._

_“Shhh, he’s okay...” said Finnick, and he pulled me into his arms and held me, gently rubbing my back to soothe me. I held onto him tightly, unsure of where I was, but seeming to know that I could trust him._

_“I’ll go and check on him,” I heard Haymitch say, and the door opened and closed. I stood in Finnick’s arms shaking, although I wasn’t sure if it was fear from not knowing where Peeta was or if it was from the rather large lightning bolt strike I took to blast a hole in the arena. It felt like an eternity before I heard the door opening again. “Just keep in mind, she’s very disoriented right now,” I heard Haymitch say. I felt Finnick lift his head and he loosened his grip on me, but I only held onto him tighter._

_“Hey, Katniss, look behind you,” Finnick said calmly, but I was too afraid to look. I felt another set of hands touch me, one on my back and one on my arm._

_“Katniss, hey...” I heard another voice say, and I recognised it immediately as I saw Peeta’s face come into view._

_“Peeta!” I exclaimed, letting go of Finnick and throwing my arms around Peeta, who held me tightly. I began to cry into his chest and I felt his lips in my hair as he rocked me back and forth._

_“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay... Everything is okay, all right?” I heard Peeta say to me, and I nodded as I held onto him. “You’re safe now, we’re safe. And we’re gonna go somewhere where we can be safe together, okay?” I nodded again. “But I need you to do something for me, okay?” He broke the hug, but held onto my shoulders, and my hands jumped to his face to cup them. I didn’t want to let go of him. “Katniss, honey, I need you to rest, okay? You’re not well and you need to rest.”_

_“Peeta...” I muttered._

_“I’m right here, and I’m not going to leave your side,” Peeta told me. “Let’s go and get you back in bed, okay? Does that sound good?” I nodded, and he pulled me back into a hug before he reached down to place an arm beneath my knees and picked me up. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. He looked at Haymitch. “I’ll put her back in bed, do you have any sleeping syrup?”_

_“We can get some,” Haymitch replied. I felt Peeta carrying me in his strong arms back to the bed that I had awoken in and he set me down onto the bed._

_“Peeta... Peeta!” I said, beginning to panic just a bit._

_“Shhh, Katniss, relax, I’m not going anywhere, okay? I need you to calm down,” he told me. My arms were still tight around his neck as he glanced up at something behind me, but I didn’t bother to look. “I’ll be right here, I won’t leave your side...” He brought his lips to mine to kiss me, and I blacked out._

* * *

I woke up on the morning of the senate meeting. Peeta was still asleep next to me, still shirtless, as he’d started doing nightly. I chuckled quietly to myself. I knew he was doing it to attract my attention, and honestly, it was working. I admired his figure as he slept. He was incredibly handsome and had a strong frame developed from years of throwing heavy flour bags around in his family’s bakery. I then turned my attention to his face, which was my favourite part of his physical appearance. Anyone could have a muscular body, but no one looked like Peeta except for Peeta. He looked like a cherub, almost, when he slept, his blonde curls falling over his face and his face looking younger than he really was. I traced his lips with my finger, wanting so badly to kiss him awake but at the same time, enjoying what I was observing, until his beautiful sky blue eyes fluttered open and he smiled as he realised who it was that had awoken him from his slumber.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” I asked him as he stretched his arms.

“I’m glad you did. This is a nice sight to wake up to,” he said to me sleepily, and I leaned down to give him a kiss. “We have that damn senate meeting to go to, don't we?” he asked when I pulled away.

“Yes, we do,” I said.

“Can’t we just, I don’t know, pretend we’re sick or something? Lay in bed all day together?”

“As much as I would love that, we have a lot to do, and we need to be there to help decide what’s to be done about Districts One and Two.”

“I don’t understand why they aren’t joining the rebellion. The Capitol is killing their children, too. You know, I spent the better part of thirteen months combined in both Districts One and Two trying to get them to join the rebellion? They wouldn’t budge. It’s like they actually _like_ being the Capitol’s slaves.”

“Maybe they’re just afraid of what their lives will be like if they leave the Capitol. I don’t even know what District One does, but I know District Two has the Peacekeepers. I don’t even know... both districts love to be pampered by the Capitol.”

“We’re the farthest from them, do we even get an opinion on what’s done with them?”

“Well, we should at least try to work out a way to make them come peacefully, but I don’t know what that even is.”

“You want to tell the most violent district in Panem to come peacefully? Good luck with that, Katniss.”

“It could work! Maybe... I don’t know. I just woke up, I need time to process my thoughts,” I said, collapsing back down onto the bed beside him. We lay there, side by side on our backs, our shoulders touching, and stared at the ceiling. “There has to be a way...” Peeta turned his head to look at me as I suddenly bolted up and climbed over him to get out of bed.

“Hey! You’re supposed to be keeping me warm!” Peeta protested, and I just grabbed his crumpled up shirt on the dresser and tossed it at him, the shirt landing on his face and then falling down into his hands. “You know what I meant!”

“I want to look into something before the meeting,” I told him as I grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I started the shower and jumped in, quickly washing my hair and my skin, before getting out and pulling clothes on. When I got out of the bathroom, he was sitting up on the bed, still shirtless, and looking at me. “Come if you like, or meet me there once you’ve showered. I’ll be at the library.” I crossed the room to him and took his face in my hands, kissing him. “If not, I’ll see you at the meeting. I love you.”

“I love you,” he muttered, clearly disappointed I’d changed gears and left him in bed by himself, and then I left, heading out to the library. There were hundreds of thousands of books collected from the archives of District Thirteen and even the other districts. I searched through them, hunting for periods in history of revolution, and found several. The American Revolution, the Texas War for Independence, the Women’s Suffrage movement, the Civil Rights and anti war movements of the 1960s, the Black Lives Matter movement in the early part of the twenty-first century. A history of revolutions in the country that Panem used to be, started by our ancestors. I flipped through everything and read through them, writing down everything these revolutions all had in common, and also writing down things unique to each revolution, and I found myself drawn to the antiwar revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It was incredible how this revolution was born in the heart of a desire for peace and was kickstarted by the younger generations. They were the ones going to war, after all, their men getting reaped by something called a draft and sent off to fight in a war that they didn’t believe in. So their wives, girlfriends, friends and even complete strangers started a war of their own back home, a peaceful war. The book said it was based on something called Flower Power, but what was that? Were they using the flowers to create some kind of weapon or something? While I was reading, I had gone to the old music archives and found a song called ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’. It didn’t list the singer, but it was a female singer with two male singers backing her up. It was a beautiful song that told of how the speaker was leaving, possibly to go off to war, and he didn’t want to leave his lover behind.

I was deep in thought, sitting there staring at the book as I listened to the words of the song, and I felt two hands on my shoulders and I looked up and found myself meeting Peeta’s eyes. I lowered the headphones. “You’re late for the meeting,” he said to me.

“Late? How? It’s only...” I glanced across the room at the clock and saw that it was a quarter past noon. “My god!” I gathered up all the notes I took, then stacked all of the books on top of each other on the table. “Sorry, I lost track of time!” I said as the two of us rushed off towards the command room.

“I see that. Find anything interesting?” Peeta asked me.

“Quite a lot. I’ll unveil all my research at the meeting,” I told him, and we stopped outside of the command room. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“It was either me or Haymitch, and you wouldn’t have liked him coming for you,” he said, and I laughed and stood up on my toes to kiss him before he opened the door and let us inside.

“Ah, it's about time you joined us, sweetheart,” said Haymitch with a rather large amount of sass.

“Sorry, I was doing research,” I said.

“Hope you found something interesting worth sharing, sweetheart, because you’re going first,” Haymitch said.

“Going first for what?” I asked, and I glanced at the room to see now twenty-eight faces staring at me. Districts One and Two both had two representatives and they looked very stern and harsh.

“We’re going to convince Districts One and Two to ignite a rebellion in their districts,” Peeta told me.

“What?” I asked, looking around. I saw, in addition to the new faces at Districts One and Two, Johanna and Finnick had both found another senator to represent their districts.

“Katniss, meet Jonny Woodstock from District Seven and Chase Winters from District Four. I’d also like to introduce Aristotle Archer and Prodigy Prelius from District One and Magnow Rose and Lenerok Kifflin from District Two,” said Haymitch, introducing the new faces.

“It’s nice of you to finally join us, Ms. Everdeen,” said Aristotle Archer with a hint of a hiss. He clearly wasn’t friendly.

“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you,” I said, ignoring the man’s jab. I looked towards Haymitch, wondering how the hell he managed to get Districts One and Two to send senators to hear what we have to say.

“Aristotle, Prodigy, Magnow and Lenerok are all members of the resistance in their respective districts, but their goals do not entirely line up with ours,” Haymitch explained. “We’re here to tell them why they should join our rebellion. District Twelve, I understand you have some research you’d like to present for us.” All eyes were on me as I straightened my papers out and cleared my throat.

“Yes, I do,” I said. “Senators of the Districts, I have with me some research on the history of rebellions in the land that we now know as Panem.” I looked at Peeta, wishing I’d had time to go through my notes with him so he could be speaking instead of me, but there was no time, and only I had all my thoughts arranged the way they needed to be. I then stood up and looked down at my paper, wishing I’d written it in speech form. Here goes nothing. “Starting in the year 1775, the people of an infant country known as the United States of America rebelled against their mother country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Their mother country imposed tyrannical laws on them, such as a law called the Stamp Act that put a high tax on paper products like stationary, newspapers and such, and the Tea Act, which was like the Stamp Act but with tea. The people fought back, participating in an act of rebellion that involved the American people dumping hoards of tea into a place known as the Boston Harbour. The mother country had done more, of course, such as initiating the Boston Massacre, which was when their soldiers fired into a crowd of Americans and killed several of them.” I paused for a moment. “No one in the history of the world had ever seen a rebellion such as this, such as the rebellion that our very ancestors ignited. It was the first of its kind, and the first of many throughout the world. This small, infant country won their rebellion against their mother country and then, they were free.”

I paused again, looking at all the eyes around me. “The Texas War for Independence is next, starting in 1835 and ending in 1836. It was a rebellion of colonists from the young United States rebelling against the armed government of the former country of Mexico. The Mexican President at the time believed that the United States instigated the rebellion and did all short of declaring a war as a result. But the people wouldn’t stop. They took the Mexican President hostage, and in exchange for his life, he ordered his army to retreat, resulting in a win for the colonists.” I paused again. “The state of Texas was once where Districts Four and Ten now exist.” I exchanged a glance with Finnick before continuing.

“The Women’s Suffrage movement didn’t really have a specific start date. Women’s Suffrage was a Women’s Rights movement advocating for women’s right to vote, as there once was a time when the two genders were viewed as unequal, and that women were the weaker sex. The height of the movement was in the early part of the twentieth century. Women protested in the streets, changed their fashion, went on hunger strikes and fought endlessly until they were finally granted the right to vote, in this country at least, in the year 1920. It was a worldwide movement, primarily in the Western world. The United Kingdom of Great Britain, the same country that my homeland of Hebridia once was a part of, granted their women the right to vote in the year 1916.” I paused again, this time locking eyes with all of the women in the room, briefly.

“In the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement fought for the equality of black men and women who fought for their right to be treated equally and not seen as different from their white counterparts. There was violent resistance from the police, as well as from white citizens who believed them to be subhuman. While they were granted legal equality under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, socially, things for them did not change. People were still cruel to them and treated them differently due to the colour of their skin, and hardly half a century later, the Black Lives Matter movement was born, which fought for their right to be treated as equals. They were constantly met with resistance, but they powered through, letting no one treat them like they were subhuman again. I believe even now, in some parts of Panem, some people still view them differently for the colour of their skin.” I glanced over at Karis Paylor, then at the two senators of District Eleven. All of them nodded, agreeing with my statement.

“And this final movement that I have researched stuck with me the most, because I believe that we can learn from it as a nation,” I said. “Many, many people have died that should be alive today, and during this movement, which happened starting in the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, many young men who didn’t have to die were shipped off to an unwanted war and came back in coffins.” I paused for a moment, taking in the aura of the room. I glanced at Gale, who seemed hardened and cold at my words. I carried on. “The men were reaped, similarly to our children, in something called a draft, in which their numbers were called and they had to go off and fight for their lives in a war in a distant land called Vietnam. And at home, the loved ones they left behind started a revolution of their own. A peaceful one, in which they fought for peace through peaceful protests, and for the lives of the men that were forced to leave them behind. Many sought to have their voices heard through literature, through film, through television, and through music. In the year 1969, there was a big concert called Woodstock.” I glanced over at the other District Seven senator, who smiled at the mention of his name in history. “Woodstock was put on because, and I quote, “it was three days of fun and music, and nothing but fun and music”. It was three days of peace, and perhaps the largest peaceful protest in history, if not one of the largest. Half a million people showed up to have their voices heard.” I paused again, then glanced down at Peeta, who smiled up at me. I then looked down at my notes again, where I had quickly scribbled down the lyrics to the song I had been listening to.

“I mentioned that music was a way for people to have their voices heard. There were many songs, but I found myself drawn to this particular one...”

“Will you sing it for us?” Peeta asked me, and I glanced up at the room.

“Go on, sing it,” said Kypp with hope in his voice, and I nodded gently and cleared my throat, recalling the melody in my head.

_All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go._

_I’m standing here outside your door._

_I hate to wake you up to say goodbye..._

_But the dawn is breaking, it’s early morn,_

_The taxi’s waiting, he’s blowing his horn._

_Already I’m so lonesome, I could cry..._

I lifted my head from the paper, already having the lyrics memorised, and I brought my attention instead to the people in the room who were watching me.

_So kiss me and smile for me,_

_Tell me that you’ll wait for me._

_Hold me like you’ll never let me go..._

_Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane,_

_Don’t know when I’ll be back again._

_Oh baby, I hate to go..._  
  


_There’s so many times I’ve let you down,_

_So many times I’ve played around._

_I tell you now, they don’t mean a thing._

_Every place I go, I’ll think of you._

_Every song I sing, I’ll sing for you._

_When I come back, I’ll wear your wedding ring._

I smiled as I got to the last verse and felt Peeta’s hand slide into mine. He took the paper from my hand and I heard his voice join mine.

_So kiss me and smile for me,_

_Tell me that you’ll wait for me._

_Hold me like you’ll never let me go..._

_Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane,_

_Don’t know when I’ll be back again._

_Oh babe, I hate to go..._

He didn’t really know the next part so he let me take the lead again.

_Now the time has come to leave you._

_One more time, let me kiss you._

_Close your eyes, I’ll be on my way._

_Dream about the days to come_

_When I won’t have to leave alone,_

_About the times I won’t have to say..._

This time, I heard two more voices join me on the chorus. It was Kypp and Calum.

_So kiss me and smile for me,_

_Tell me that you’ll wait for me._

_Hold me like you’ll never let me go..._

_Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane,_

_Don’t know when I’ll be back again._

_Oh baby, I hate to go_

This time, it was just Peeta singing with me, because only he had the paper.

_Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane,_

_Don’t know when I’ll be back again..._

Then it was me by myself on the last line as I glanced down at him. He smiled at me.

_Oh babe, I hate to go..._

The room was silent for a moment, and I looked back up at the room, which was sitting there in silence, waiting for me to continue. I cleared my throat again.

“What’s the importance of all this, you might ask?” I said, breaking the silence, and now addressing only Districts One and Two. “The importance is that we have a history of rebelling and bringing about change. Good change. Better futures for our children. There are people who died in all of these rebellions that I have mentioned, and they died for their futures. For _our_ present. We would not be the people we are today, or the society we want to be, if it weren’t for our ancestors and the rebellions they started. There was another quote from this era that I found that I want to share with you all. The person who said it was not named, but it was said that she was a woman.” I cleared my throat as I read the paper.

“Rebellions are born in the heart of the young, who fight for the futures of their children, their grandchildren, and every generation beyond. Those of us who fight know that we may not live to reap the fruits of our victories, but we know that someday, the world may be a better place for the future generations. We fight not for us, but for them. Revolution is in the hands of the young, and the young will always inherit the revolution.”

I looked up at Districts One and Two, who seemed less harsh than they did before. “Join us... fight with us... Let’s put an end to the Capitol, to their Hunger Games. Let us not allow them to send more of our children to die in the arena. Most of us here have seen children who did no wrong die in the arena. Prodigy, I understand that your daughter died in the Games as well.” She looked down at her hands clasped in front of her. Her daughter had been a tribute in the 70th Hunger Games, the year that Annie Cresta was the Victor because she could swim in the massive tidal wave that killed the rest of the tributes. She looked back up at me, and then at Aristotle. Her eyes were glistening at the memory of her only daughter.

“We do it for them,” she whispered, and then she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I’m prepared to represent District One in the rebellion.”

“As am I,” said Aristotle, now much softer than before. “I lost my only brother to the Games. I will do whatever I can to end them.” I couldn’t help but smile. District One had been won over. Thirteen districts were now fully on board with the rebellion. That left District Two, which was proving to be a tough nut to crack.

“Excellent, excellent!” said Haymitch proudly as a few senators at the table clapped. “That only leaves you, District Two.” The two District Two senators remained stagnant, and they glanced at each other before looking at me.

“You are preaching a history of peace to a militaristic district, Twelve. We are not sure that your beliefs line up with ours, or that your desires for an outcome line up with ours,” said Magnow.

“We would like some time to think, and then we will give you an answer,” said Lenerok. “In the meantime, we would like to return to our district.”

“But the rebellion is happening now,” I said to them firmly. “Every day that you wait, more lives are lost. Every _year_ that we wait, another Hunger Games happens and twenty-one innocent children die at the hands of the Capitol. Is that really what you want?”

“We will reconvene when we make our decision. In the meantime, do exclude us from your future decisions, and stay out of District Two,” warned Magnow. The two District Two senators rose. “Mr. Abernathy, thank you for your time, we will be in touch shortly.” Both Magnow and Lenerok shook his hand, and the two men left the command room.

“Meeting adjourned, I guess,” said Haymitch, unsure of what else to do. The room dispersed, and once Peeta and I were out of the room and in the corridor, he picked me up and spun me around as the two of us laughed and embraced.

“You did it! You convinced them!” Peeta said proudly, taking my face in his hands.

“I’ve only convinced One,” I reminded him.

“But you made Two think, and that’s what matters most, isn’t it?” he asked, and I shrugged and let him kiss me. “I’m so proud of you, you did so well! Who says you can’t talk to people?”

“Still me, it took me way too long to tell you I loved you,” I reminded him.

“But you did, and now you say it every day,” he said with a smile, and he leaned down to kiss me again. We were interrupted by a throat clearing, and we broke apart to see Gale standing there, seemingly looking awkward. “Gale...”

“Peeta, Katniss,” he said, and then he looked at me. “That was a great speech, Katniss. I think Two will come around shortly.”

“Thank you,” I said, unsure of what to say next. He nodded awkwardly, then looked at us both before leaving.

“Well, that was awkward,” said Peeta, breaking the silence. Suddenly, our thoughts were broken again this time by Carolina Abernathy.

“Peeta, I need you to come sign something real quick. Katniss already signed it and you’re the only one left,” she said.

“I am? Okay then,” he said, and he turned to me, giving me a quick kiss. “I’ll be right back.” I nodded and watched him follow Carolina back into the command room. As I waited for him outside, I thought I saw that old lady that I had seen in the cafeteria. She looked at me from around a corner, smiled, and motioned for me to follow her, then disappeared. I looked around to see if anyone else had seen her, but it appeared that no one had. I wanted to wait for Peeta, but considering this old woman waited for me to be alone before attracting my attention, she must have wanted to talk to me alone. I decided to follow her, first seeing nothing down the corridor, but then hearing a voice coming out of a dark room.

“In here, girl on fire,” said an old woman’s voice. All this was so strange. Something in my gut told me to go back and wait for Peeta, but curiosity got the better of me, and I went into the dark room, the door closing behind me.

“Who are you?” I asked the old woman, who was seated in a chair beside a small table. She motioned for me to sit down in an empty chair beside her. She was definitely older, easily seventy or eighty years old. Possibly as old as the Hunger Games themselves. I sat down beside her. “Why are you following me?”

“I have things to tell you,” she told me with a sly grin.

“I’d like to know who I’m talking to first,” I asked her, and her grin got wider.

“My name is Maude Ivory,” she said, “and I’m going to tell you the story of Lucy Gray Baird.”


	9. Chapter VIII: The Stains That Don’t Wash Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta worries about Katniss when she disappears without a word. Katniss tells him about Gale.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

I wasn’t sure where Katniss had gone off to. I asked her to wait for me while I signed the documents declaring myself as a senator of District Twelve for Carolina, but when I went back into the hall, she was gone. No one in the immediate area had seen her, either, so I was just left wondering where the hell she went. I checked my watch - it was a little after two. Lunch started at half past two, so I resigned myself to go to the cafeteria and joined Johanna, the Odair, Calum, Cailean and Carolina at the table. “None of you have seen Katniss, have you?” I asked them.

“Wasn’t she with you?” asked Carolina. “She was with you when I asked you to go back into the command room.”

“I know, she was right there! But when I got back, she was gone,” I said. I tried not to worry about her, but it was hard not to after not knowing what was going on with her at all for over two years. I didn’t see her at all until dinner, when she finally showed up and sat down beside me.

“Hello, _mo ghaol_ ,” she said seemingly with exhaustion in her voice. She leaned in to kiss me, but I held up a finger to her lips to stop her.

“Where were you today? You completely disappeared with no word to anyone,” I said to her rather sternly, and she sat back and looked at me as if I had insulted her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think I had to tell you my whereabouts every moment of my life,” she spat at me.

“Don’t start, Katniss. I spent five months thinking you were dead and two years without you. You can at least tell me where you’re going for the rest of the duration of the rebellion,” I said firmly, putting my foot down. She was stubborn, and usually I was the more passive one, but this one I wasn’t letting slide. She let out a sigh.

“All right. I went to the hospital. Remember they asked me to help them out there? Turns out they don’t have a single obstetrician in the entire district so I’m the only one here who is qualified to deliver pre and post-natal care,” she said. I’d almost forgotten that she had once been a midwife in District Twelve.

“And you couldn’t have waited five minutes to tell me that?” I asked her.

“There was an emergency,” she said, and she paused for a moment. “Annie went into labour early.”

“She _what_?” exclaimed Carolina, and Katniss nodded.

“The baby survived, she’s in an incubator, though. She was born four months early,” Katniss told her.

“That’s awful! Well, wonderful that the baby survived but awful that this had to happen!” said Carolina.

“Should I check in with Finnick?” I asked her.

“He’s been an absolute mess, worrying about Annie and then having to look after Killick. He could use a friend,” Katniss replied. “Sorry I didn’t tell you, or even send word.”

“It’s fine, Katniss, it was an emergency. I just get worried about you,” I told her, and she took my hand in hers.

“You should worry more for your sanity, being married to me,” she told me, and we shared a laugh.

“Are you really the only person here qualified to deal with babies?” asked Cailean, and she nodded.

“I’ve already taken on a couple of medics to train under me so that I’m not the _only_ one qualified. Has there really not been a birth here yet besides Annie?” Katniss asked Carolina, and she nodded.

“We didn’t really have anyone who was pregnant come to Fourteen. We’ve only been here for about three months,” she said, tucking into her soup. I glanced over at Katniss and found that she wasn’t really touching her food.

“Are you all right?” I whispered to her, gently rubbing her back, and she nodded.

“Just not all that hungry,” she whispered back. “I think I might just go back to the room and lie down.”

“Want me to go with you?” I asked her again, and she shook her head.

“Finish your dinner, and mine too, for the matter. I just need a few minutes to myself,” she replied. I leaned over to kiss her cheek and she got up, leaving the cafeteria.

“Is she all right?” Cailean asked me.

“Just tired, I think. We had a big meeting earlier with the senate and she also gets stressed when she’s at a troubled birth,” I told him. We all finished our dinner, chatting about various things, and when it was over, I decided to join Katniss in our room.

* * *

_I heard a knock at my door. It was in the middle of the night and it was storming - who the hell would be at my door in a storm? It was about three months after the Games had ended and it was still warm out. I was struggling to sleep, which explained why I was awake at such an ungodly hour. Rubbing the nonexistent sleep from my eyes, I got up to answer the door and found her standing outside of my door, dressed in a tan dress and a black wool cape - the uniform of a District Twelve midwife. “Katniss?” I asked with surprise, and all she did was throw her arms around my neck and sob into my shoulder. “Shhh, Katniss, it’s okay...” I whispered into her hair as I held her in my arms._

_I let her cry for a minute into my shoulder before I brought her inside, got her mud-caked shoes off of her and led her into my living room and sat her down on my couch, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. I made her some lavender tea with lemon, something she had told me about once, and sat down on a chair in front of her. “Is everything all right?” I asked her._

_“I was just at a birth,” she said quietly, then sniffed. “The baby was stillborn.”_

_“Katniss, I’m so sorry,” I said, not entirely knowing what else to say._

_“It’s okay... I’ve had stillborn births before, but none since... since before the games,” she said through tears. I got up and approached her, then wiped her tears away with my thumb. “It’s different now, everything is... I watched children die brutal, awful deaths in the arena and now... Peeta, I never stop seeing the blood on my hands... it’s like a stain.” She looked down at her hands in front of her, her palms facing up. I placed my palms over hers._

_“I have them, too,” I said to her. She looked up at me, her eyes filled with sorrow for the children lost, and she wrapped her fingers around my hands. I did the same._

_“We’re the same, then. Glorified murderers,” she said._

_“We had to protect ourselves. Katniss... Honey, it was kill or be killed,” I told her, trying to comfort her. She nodded gently, then glanced back down at our hands._

_“Can I stay tonight?” she asked me. “I don’t want to be alone...”_

_“Of course you can,” I said to her. “You always can.” That night, we both slept in my bed, Katniss curling up beside me and I holding her tightly. I didn’t want to sleep because I wanted to hold her forever, but before I knew it, I fell fast asleep. When I woke up, she was gone, but I held onto the memory of her in my arms. I never knew when I’d get to do it again._

* * *

I opened the door to our room to Katniss laying on the bed staring at the wall. She didn’t acknowledge me when I walked in, so I crawled into bed beside her and wrapped an arm around her, kissing her cheek. “How’re you feeling?” I asked her.

“I thought we were going to lose them. Both of them,” she said.

“But you didn’t,” I told her. “You didn’t lose them because you knew what you were doing and they’re alive because of that.” She was silent for a moment.

“I can still see the blood on my hands...” she muttered.

“Honey, you don’t have blood on your hands.”

“We’re at war, Peeta. All of our hands are filthy.” She paused again. “But I wasn’t talking about that. About any of that.”

“What were you talking about?” She sat up and I followed suit, then she took my hand and met my eyes. I thought that maybe she was going to kiss me, or ask me to kiss her, or even something more, but she didn’t.

“Would you like to know what happened between me and Gale?” she asked. I sat still for a moment, and then nodded. “Promise me you’ll act like you know nothing.”

“That bad, huh?” I asked, but she didn’t laugh.

“Peeta.”

“All right, I know nothing. What happened?” She took a moment to clear her thoughts.

“It all started a few months before the reaping, _our_ reaping...”

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

_It was spring. I was fifteen years old, soon to be sixteen, and I was already making fast progress with my midwifery training. I was already qualified to deliver babies in all different types of situations, and I could do it safely. Many mothers requested me specifically because I was learning so quickly, and because I always stopped by the bakery to pick them up a cookie or two. On this particular day, I had gone to the bakery to get a cookie for the mayor’s brother’s eldest daughter, who was in labour, and when I walked in, only the youngest son of the baker was there. “Just a minute,” he called from some back room. I took a moment to observe my surroundings, admiring the frosted cakes in the window, when I heard footsteps approaching. “Can I help you?” I turned to face him and upon turning, Peeta Mellark turned bright pink. “Oh! Hi, Katniss... Uh... Mom’s out right now, but she told me that if you stop by at any point, to give you a cookie on the house.”_

_“I can pay for it,” I said, reaching into my medical bag for my small coin pouch._

_“No, no, we insist,” said Peeta, and he packaged up a cookie for me and handed it to me, our fingertips brushing ever so slightly. It felt like pins and needles where he’d touched me, but I just brushed it off as feeling a bit chilly._

_“Thank you,” I said. “Tell your mother it’s Mrs. Undersee’s daughter, the one from the fruit vendor, not the... mayor’s wife...” I didn’t know why I suddenly felt as if I couldn’t speak. I needed to go, but I felt rooted to my spot. “Er... Best be off... Babies don’t wait for anyone.” He smiled gently at me, and I left the bakery in time to hide a gentle blush on my cheeks._

_I wish I could say the rest of my day went smoothly, but when I returned home after the birth, I found Gale there waiting for me. “Katniss, I’ve been waiting for you. I want to show you something I found out in the woods today,” he told me._

_“Can’t I clean up a bit? I’ve just gotten back from a birth,” I said._

_“It’ll be quick, I promise!” Gale said with a smile, and he took my hand and led me out of my house. He brought me up to an older part of the Seam, where abandoned houses now lay._

_“This doesn’t seem very quick,” I told him, considering it was easily a twenty minute walk here. I saw him looking around before safely deciding to talk to me._

_“Actually, Katniss, it’s very serious,” he said. “It’s Auburn... She’s having a baby.” I knew Gale was friends with Auburn Loreley, but I didn’t know that he had anything beyond that with her. I urged myself to be jealous, but I believe now that I was too angry at him for being stupid to be jealous._

_Evidently, he’d slept with Auburn seven months before and got her pregnant, and now the poor girl was in early labour. “It hurts so much!” she moaned._

_“It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay...” I said to her, and I looked up at Gale. “You should really go and fetch Dr. Gifford.”_

_“No!” cried Auburn. “If anyone finds out about this, I’ll be ruined!”_

_“You’ve gone into labour early, Auburn. Something can be very wrong and you need to see Dr. Gifford,” I told her._

_“She said she doesn’t want to see anyone,” Gale said sternly, and I looked up at him, almost in disbelief that he dared to speak to me of all people like that._

_“She needs a professional. Either she or the baby or both can die, do you really want that?” I demanded from him._

_“If the baby dies, that solves all of our problems,” Gale replied. I couldn’t believe that those words came out of his mouth. They were along the same lines as all his anger and hatred that he directed at the Capitol, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was capable of saying such horrible things. I turned to Auburn and, with a sigh, examined her._

_My prediction of a troubled birth had been correct. The baby was breeched, meaning it was coming out feet first, which complicated the birth even more. I worked as slowly and as carefully as I could. I managed to pull the baby out, a little boy, but he was limp in my hands. I tried my best to revive him, but he was born still. Gale seemed happy, or at least until Auburn started hemorrhaging. “It’s a placental abruption!” I exclaimed as I tried my best to help the poor girl. “There’s nothing I can do...”_

_I raised my hands, and glistening in the moonlight was poor Auburn Loreley’s blood covering them. The floor and my clothes were now covered in blood as poor Auburn kept hemorrhaging, and then she was still. Both Auburn and her child had died, the child before he’d even had a chance and Auburn from bleeding out to death. I was in tears, wanting to bury my face in my hands and cry, but Auburn’s blood caked my hands. The blood that now stains my hands, the blood that burned the image of the stain into my mind. My first human kill, before the Hunger Games even forced me to kill._

_“I’ll deal with this... you wash up and go home... and thanks,” said Gale, as if this was the outcome he was expecting._

* * *

“And it didn’t come up again between us, but it always haunted me,” I told Peeta, wrapping up my story. “Maybe about, oh... eight months after we set out on our missions, Gale tried to confess his feelings for me. I could never see him the way I used to again, and I told him that when he asked me why I was rejecting him. He asked me if I ever loved him and I told him I did, as a brother and a dear friend, but he said it wasn’t enough. I got angry. I told him that I couldn’t love him because he was the reason for the first bloodstain on my hands, and that he ought to consider himself lucky I even look at him at all. I could never forgive him for letting me kill that poor girl...”

“Honey, you didn’t kill her,” Peeta told me. I loved when he called me ‘honey’ and he was starting to pick up on that. “You told them they needed professional help and they didn’t want it. You did what you could, Katniss, it was out of your control.”

“I should have just run for the doctor myself,” I said, starting to tear up. I tried to fight them off; I hated crying, and I especially hated doing it in front of other people. But thankfully, the only other person in our room was Peeta, and I trusted him enough to let down my guard. I wanted to put my hands down on the bed to stabilise myself, but I feared that I would stain the bedsheets with blood - blood that may have once been washed away long ago but still stained my skin.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Peeta whispered to me. “Just tell me when I can kill him.” I chuckled gently, then leaned my head onto his shoulder.

“He was angry at me for bringing that up,” I continued. “When he gets angry, he turns vicious. He attacked me, said I killed her. Tried to call her the ‘love of his life’. Maybe he was stressed, we all were. Lord knows I was because all I wanted was to be with you and we were well past the couple of months we were promised.”

“There’s no excuse for that. You’re not at fault, you did nothing wrong. And I’m glad you fended him off. I’m insulted he would even try that when he knows your heart belongs to me.” I smiled as he rubbed my shoulder and kissed my head.

“He thought I made the wrong choice, thought I belonged to him and that we belonged together. No amount of me telling him that he was wrong would change his mind. We became cold towards each other. I miss our friendship, but if I had to choose between you and him, Peeta, I wouldn’t even give it a second thought. You’re my choice. You’re what I want. I didn’t ask for him.”

“I love you so much,” he whispered to me, and I only smiled at him before singing a gentle song.

_So kiss me and smile for me,_

_Tell me that you’ll wait for me,_

_Hold me like you’ll never let me go..._

He chuckled gently and cupped my face in his hands, pulling my lips into a deep kiss. I felt myself lie down on the bed and pull him down with me and he hovered over me as we kissed again and again. When he broke the kiss to come up for air, we were both breathing heavily and he ran a hand through my hair. “Hey, gorgeous,” he whispered breathlessly. I reached up to brush his hair out of his face.

“I need a shower more than anything right now,” I muttered. The seductive look in his eye faded into disappointment, and he nodded and got off of me without a word. As I felt the warm water crash against my skin, I felt terrible that I’d stopped him in a moment that we could have taken further. I _wanted_ to take it further, and clearly so did he, but I panicked and killed the moment by saying I needed a shower.

I let out a sigh. I wanted him, needed him, but I was so afraid. What if I couldn’t please him the way he deserved to be pleased? What if he got bored of me and left me for someone more interested and experienced? What if, when he saw me, he thought I was hideous? I looked down at myself.

My breasts were small for my age. They never really developed past the age of twelve or thirteen. They weren’t full or round and looked as if they belonged to a teenager just starting to go through puberty. I was also very skinny, too skinny. My rib cage was visible and my hip bones stuck out, all from years of malnutrition and never being able to have a full meal. I had a nasty, angry scar on my left side from when I was shot in District Five four months after we’d started our mission. It had healed, but it still looked fresh. I wasn’t the idea of beauty, but Peeta was. If I allowed him to see me, would he see this and decide that I am not on the same level as him and leave me? If I didn’t have sex with him, would he get bored of me?

That wasn’t Peeta. Peeta loved me no matter what I looked like. He’d loved me for years, before we’d even met. We met when we were eight years old and even though I was a refugee, he was the first person who showed me any kindness. At lunch, I used to sit outside by the trees by myself, and the first time he saw me doing this, he came out and sat beside me. _“No one should have to eat alone,”_ he’d said. And here we were, twelve years later, married and in love. Peeta wouldn’t leave me. He’d waited all those years, and he’d wait forever if he had to, but I couldn’t do that to him. I had to get over my fears and show him how I love him for everything he’d ever done for me.

I got out of the shower, ignoring the clean clothes I’d brought in to change into in favour of a towel, and I took a deep breath. _This was it_ , I thought to myself. I opened the door and stood in the doorway, seeing Peeta still lying on the bed reading a book.

“Peeta,” I said, and he looked up at me, blushing slightly when he noticed that I was wearing nothing but a towel. “...I’m ready.”


	10. Chapter IX: Shelter Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta and Katniss finally consummate their marriage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat graphic sexual content featured.
> 
> ‘Shelter Me’ — The Outfield

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

I was confused. She was ready? For what? To go to bed? Was she planning on sleeping in that towel? “What?” I asked. She left the door frame and approached me, sitting down on the bed and putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Peeta,” she said again. “I want to do the sex with you.” I felt like such an idiot. Of course that’s what she was ready for. I felt so stupid that I just burst out laughing, and she started laughing, too.

“I thought you forgot about that!” I said to her. I’d told her to tell me she was ready like that a good two and a half years before.

“You asked me to announce it to you that way, so I swore not to forget it,” she replied. As our laughter faded out, we met eyes, and I could see that she really did want this, but there was still some hesitance in her eyes.

“Are you sure?” I asked her. “I’m not going to force you if you don’t want to.”

“I’m sure.” I nodded gently, not really sure what to do next.

“I should have been more prepared for this,” I confessed. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Well, you could take off your clothes, for starters,” she replied.

“Well, someone’s forward,” I teased, and I started with my shirt first, tossing it aside. Then I stood up and undid my pants, pulling them down and stepping out of them, leaving just my underwear. As I hooked my thumbs in the waistband, she stopped me.

“Let me,” she said, “and while I’m doing that, you can take my towel off.”

“Are you sure?” I asked again.

“Peeta, just assume that every answer to that question is ‘yes’,” she replied.

“Katniss, I don’t wanna do anything that’s gonna make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m asking you to take my towel off, Peeta. If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be asking that.” I nodded gently.

“Okay,” was all I could say. She then slid her fingers into the waistband of my underwear, and as she pulled them down, I undid the towel that was covering her body and let it slide off, leaving both of us naked.

I felt terrible for staring, but I couldn’t help it. She looked beautiful, and so perfect. Her breasts were round and small, perfectly able to fit in the palm of my hand, and her frame was very narrow, but I loved her no matter what. My eyes then fell on a scar on her left side, and my fingers reached for it and gently brushed over it. “What happened,” I whispered.

“Got shot in District Five,” she muttered back.

“Did it hurt?”

“Did yours hurt when you got shot in the shoulder?” I realised that it was a stupid question, and I looked up at her eyes and chuckled.

“Sorry, I’m a little distracted,” I confessed.

“I see that,” she replied, amusement dancing in her eyes. She then took my hand by the wrist and placed it on her breast, never breaking eye contact with me. Now it was my turn to become nervous. I could feel a pressure down below and when I glanced down, I could see that my penis had gone hard, and my cheeks flushed just a little bit.

“Maybe we should... get under the covers...” I said shyly.

“Because you have a raging hardon?” she asked me, and I blushed even more.

“Katniss!” I exclaimed, and she laughed and crawled onto my lap, straddling me and wrapping her arms around my neck. My hands found their way to her lower back, keeping her steady.

“Whatever makes you feel comfortable, _mo ghaol_ ,” she told me, calling me ‘her love’ in Gàidhlig. I nodded and let her kiss me before we crawled under the covers of our bed, doing nothing more than looking at each other.

“I didn’t think I’d be so nervous,” I admitted. “I don’t know about you, but... this’ll be my first time.”

“Mine too,” she told me. “I’m glad it’s with you.”

“Bet you thought it would be Gale, huh?” I asked her, then immediately regretted saying it.

“Actually, I hoped it wouldn’t be,” she said calmly. “Everyone else thought it would be, though. They thought we’d get married, but I always knew in the back of my mind that I didn’t want to.”

“Did you think you’d ever get a first time?” She shrugged.

“I thought that maybe, I’d have it at some point, but I didn’t think it would be out of love or to have children. I didn’t think I wanted to fall in love. In fact, I definitely didn’t want to fall in love. Seeing how much love hurt, especially with the Games going on. I’d lost everyone I’d ever loved, and I didn’t want to go through it again.” She paused for a moment. “And then I met you. I thought, maybe I’d change my mind someday, but when I saw what Panem did to its children, I got scared and I didn’t want to take the chance that I’d fall in love and lose it all over again.”

“Are you saying you were in love with me before the Quell?” I asked her, a bit surprised at this confession. I’d never felt for a second that she had ever harboured any feelings for me before the Games.

“I didn’t know what to call it, but I knew that I cared about you, and about what happened to you,” she replied. “But I didn’t want to lose anyone else that I loved, so I tried to suppress those feelings. I’d almost forgotten about them until the Games happened to us. I wanted to do everything I could to get you home to your family.”

“It wouldn’t have been worth it if you hadn’t been there with me.”

“But then I wasn’t. I pushed you away even harder.”

“And I kept coming back.” She laughed.

“You did, you really did... Once I accepted that I knew I could never do anything to keep those feelings away, I... stopped trying...”

“When did you realise it?”

“I think the Victory Tour was when the thought first entered my mind. I tried to fight against it, and then the Quell was announced, and I thought to myself, ‘I’m going back into the arena, I can at least try to keep him out’. But then your stubborn ass decided to volunteer in place of Haymitch.” I laughed. “And on the train, I was angry with you for doing that, but then I got over it, and that was when I decided that I had to do whatever it took to protect you.”

“It still took you a few days to admit your feelings for me.”

“On the beach, when I was sure I was going to die, I knew then that I couldn’t keep my feelings hidden any longer. I wanted you to know that I really did love you, and that I wanted to die knowing that you knew.” She raised a hand to my face and brushed a piece of hair out of my eyes. “But you didn’t believe me, did you?”

“Not fully,” I confessed. “I thought it was still for the cameras, as a way to get sympathy so someone would send us a gift.”

“So when did you know I was telling the truth?”

“Maybe on the hovercraft, after we’d been picked up by the rebels. Haymitch came and told me you were asking for me and asked if I felt okay enough to go to you. At first, I didn’t really want to, but he told me you were very scared and didn’t want anyone else, so when he brought me to you, I saw that you were terrified and holding onto Finnick. He handed you off to me and you were so happy to see me that I knew that you weren’t lying in the arena,” I told her. “But then after that, when we were brought to Thirteen, you just pushed me away again, so I thought that I’d been fooled again, and I was angry.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“But then Haymitch told me you’d just found out that two of your brothers and your father had survived that attack, but that your father had died a few years before. He said you were disoriented not only from the lighting strike still but from your entire world changing so suddenly...” She rested the palm of her hand on my cheek.

“As much as I hate what it did to us, I’m so glad we were both reaped, because if we hadn’t been, maybe we would have never met or gotten to know each other... we wouldn’t be as happy as we are now. They destroyed us as individuals, but they brought us together and made us stronger that way.” I smiled at her. “You have no idea how much I love you...”

“Why don’t you show me?” I whispered to her, reminding her of what we’d been doing before we laid down to talk. She smiled at me.

“Not so nervous anymore, are you?” I shook my head, and she got up on her elbows to draw my lips into a deep, passionate kiss. My arms wrapped around her and my hands began to roam her body. My hands found her way to her breasts and I started thinking back to what Haymitch had told me. I’d gone to him for advice a second time, and that second time, he’d told me that a woman’s nipples were very sensitive and he made a point to play with them a little bit. Mustering up the courage to do so, I started to rub little circles on one of her nipples and I heard her groan with pleasure. I smiled into our kisses and took the initiative to flip her over so that I was on top of her.

 _“Down between her legs, there’s a little bean that makes girls feel good. Lick it, flick it, you get the same results.”_ I heard Haymitch’s words echoing in my head. While still rubbing her nipple with my thumb, I started moving my kisses down her body, first to her chin, then down her neck, then her collarbone, and then down her chest, until her breasts were level with my face. My lips wrapped around her other nipple and my tongue rubbed up against it. I heard her let out a gentle groan - if me rubbing her nipples was giving her this kind of reaction, I couldn’t wait to see what that little bean that Haymitch mentioned would do to her. I continued to kiss her body, moving from her nipples down her stomach and then down to her pelvis. I hadn’t had a look at her area down below, so when I reached it, I found myself staring.

“Not the prettiest thing, is it?” she asked me, and I looked up at her and blushed, embarrassed to have been caught staring.

“It’s on you, so it has to be beautiful,” I told her. “I assume it has a name?”

“Some call it ‘the bitch’, but it’s actually called a vagina,” she told me, and I laughed a little. I looked down between her legs again, taking note of everything there. I saw the little bean that Haymitch mentioned, and I ran a finger down her thigh. _“Lick it, flick it, you get the same results.”_ She liked what my mouth had been doing to her.

“Can I lick you?” I asked. It was such a stupid way to ask it. She looked at me curiously.

“Sure?” she said with confusion. I ducked my head back down to where my lips had left her skin before, on her pelvis. I continued kissing down, moving to her thighs to avoid the pubic hair that grew, and then I found my way to that little bean, my tongue brushing up against it. Suddenly, I heard her laughing, and I picked my head back up to look at her with one eyebrow raised.

“What? Does it tickle?” I asked her, and she shook her head, still hysterical.

“I didn’t know you meant _that_ kind of licking! I thought you meant you were going to lick my skin or something!” she exclaimed through laughter. “I’m sorry, continue, continue.” I chuckled to myself, imagining that if she’d asked me the same question, I probably would have thought the same. I ducked my head back down and brought my lips down onto that little bean, kissing it, licking it, my hands gripping her thighs as she shifted in the bed. “Peeta...”

“Yes, my love?” I asked her, resuming my task after answering her.

“Come here,” she whispered, and I paused and looked up at her. She motioned for me to crawl back up to her, and I licked her off of my lips and did as I was told. “I need you...” She spoke with desperation, and I brought my lips to her neck to kiss it. I felt her fingers brush against my penis and it startled me. I pushed myself up and looked at her, and her eyes met mine as she took me into her hand. “Why do I get to have all the fun?” With her free hand, she placed it on the back of my head and pulled me down to kiss her as I felt her hand start to move up and down.

“God, I love you,” I moaned into her mouth. She quietly giggled as she kissed me. “I need you,” I whispered to her.

“Come inside, then,” she said. She led me to her entrance, and then let go of me to wrap her arms around me. I thought back to what Haymitch had told me about this moment. _“Condoms. Now ain’t the time to get her pregnant.”_

“Hold on,” I whispered, and I got up to go over to the dresser, where I had put the pack of condoms that Haymitch had given me. I pulled one out and then slid back into bed, crawling on top of her again.

“What’s that?” she asked me.

“Protection,” I replied. “Haymitch gave it to me.”

“You went to Haymitch for advice?” she asked.

“Um... yeah...” I said, suddenly thinking it was a bad idea to tell her. She smiled.

“So did I,” she said, and I laughed. Of course she went to Haymitch. I opened the little pack and pulled out the condom, slipping it on and resuming the position I had left before I got up.

“Still ready?” I asked her, and her hand went to my face to brush my hair out of my eyes. Perhaps I should get it cut.

“Always,” she told me. I pressed my lips against hers, then started to push myself into her. “Ooh, slowly, Peeta...” she said with a grimace.

“Sorry,” I whispered back, and then proceeded more slowly. Once I was part of the way in, I started to pull back out, advice that Haymitch had given me the second time I went to him. “ _In and out, in and out. The same kinda movements you do with your hand,”_ Haymitch had said, and I tried my best to mimic it. She began to moan gently, moans that I soon found myself matching as we got more comfortable with each other. I fit inside of her perfectly, almost as if we were meant to fit each other like the pieces in a puzzle. I could feel a pressure in me building up, and the faster we went, the more intense it got. I grabbed onto her hips with my hands to bring her even closer to me, getting closer and closer to pushing my full length into her. Her grip on my back tightened and I felt her grab my hair and pull on it just a little as she let out a very loud moan and shouted out my name - an orgasm, as Haymitch called it. And then it was my turn. The pressure got so intense that I let out a cry and felt a release, and when it had passed, I collapsed on top of her, the two of us panting in sync.

I felt her fingers in my hair, gently stroking it, and I felt her arms tighten around me before feeling her lips on the side of my head. “That was wonderful,” she whispered. I smiled into the pillow, lifting my head up to give her a passionate kiss.

“You were the star of the show,” I told her, and she laughed.

“I can’t help but wonder what the hell I was so afraid of... I don’t think I’ve ever felt so good in my life, Peeta, and it was all thanks to you. You made me feel incredible,” she told me. I kissed her again.

“I love you so much,” I said to her.

“I love you, too,” she told me. I laid down beside her and she held me tightly in her arms. We laid in silence for a while, and then I realised that her breathing had steadied and she’d fallen asleep. I kissed her forehead, and then got up to go to the bathroom and discarded the used condom in the trash, then rejoined her again and wrapped my arms around her.

I was living the dreams of my childhood, perhaps not in the way that I would have thought, but I was still living them. I had just made love to the girl of my dreams, the girl I fell in love with, and here she was lying in my arms still naked, with me of all people. I loved this woman more than anything in the world and the time that I had waited for her had done nothing but increase the love that I felt. “I love you so much, Katniss,” I whispered to her again, and then I dozed off, happy with the love of my life in my arms.


	11. Chapter X: When War Comes Calling Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An emergency in the hospital keeps Katniss from an important senate meeting, which would have featured District Two’s decision to join the rebellion.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

A week had passed since Peeta and I first consummated our marriage and we’d done it a few more times since then. We didn’t see each other a lot during the day anymore, with him working with Calum and Cailean on some project and I spending time in the hospital helping to train some of the other medics in obstetrics, so it was a nice thing to look forward to. We experimented more, trying new positions, him putting his fingers in me... I tried to take him in my mouth, but it didn’t work out very well. I couldn’t stop gagging and he couldn’t stop laughing, so we resorted to not doing that. “I’ll lick it if I have to because I’m not giving up what you do to me,” I’d told him.

“Who said I was gonna stop?” he asked me in response. Part of me still couldn’t believe that I was in love with, married to and having sex with Peeta Mellark.

We sometimes saw each other at meals, if I had the time to take them. If I wasn’t training the medics in obstetrics, then I was helping tend to the wounded rebels that came to us from the battlefields. But seeing more and more of them come was heartbreaking to me because it meant that more people were dying from a war that just needed to end. The Capitol wasn’t backing down, and District Two still refused to join us, but they did agree to come for another meeting.

On that day, a District Thirteen medical ship arrived carrying hundreds of wounded rebel soldiers and civilians from District Five. I wondered if Prim was aboard, but she wasn’t. Prim survived the bombing of Thirteen along with her hideous cat, Buttercup, but our mother wasn’t as lucky. She now worked as a field medic, providing medical care on the battlefield. I tried to talk her out of it, but she was refusing to hear me out. In her anger, she shut me out, and I haven’t spoken to her since.

The damage to the rebel soldiers was bad. Many of them had lost limbs, died on the way or died in the hospital. There were hundreds of bloodied, moaning men and women, and just not enough medics.

“We need to find a way to organise them and treat the more life-threatening injuries first,” I said. “Call down to the morgue, Breea, and tell them we need them to bring down as many dead as possible as quickly as they can. We need the space.” I was addressing the woman who ran the front desk, who’s name I finally learned. I then gathered all the medics to announce to them my plans. “There are hundreds of soldiers here and only twenty-three of us. We need every bed in the ward cleared. Send patients to their rooms with whatever equipment they need until we get this under control. Those with minor injuries should be treated by a small team of medics and sent elsewhere. Breea, get Room Assignments on the phone and get them working on assignments for those with minor injuries. The rest of us need to focus on finding and treating the rest. Those with moderate injuries that can become fatal if not treated quick enough will be labelled Critical 1 and those who need to be treated immediately will be labelled Critical Two. Mairi, Hepburn, Zedan and Debbie, you’re on minor injuries. Get to them quickly and get them out as quickly as you can so we have room for criticals. Go to the maternity ward. Evera and Orchia, go around with a marker and help us get started with sorting out Criticals 1 and 2 and send minor injuries to the maternity ward, when you’re done, help out with Critical 2. Breea, help them when you’ve contacted Room Assignments and the morgue and when you’re done, jump on Critical One. Room assignments first, we need people out of here. Hallox and Rarity, start moving people in the wards that aren’t in danger of dying if they leave out. Serebella, if we have patients die on us in either Critical 1 or 2, your job is to move them to the lobby to be taken down to the morgue. Simone, Gidget, Menlo, Orbit, Rig and Demey, you’re Critical 1. Everyone else, you’re on Critical 2. If any Criticals die, call Serebella. Get to it.”

We all scattered, each of us doing our assigned tasks. As we worked our hardest to save as many lives as we could, the clock ticked away, and the meeting slipping my mind.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

It was now half past twelve. We were about half an hour into the meeting and everyone was staring at me as I sat between Kypp from District Eleven and Katniss’s empty seat beside me. Where was she? She knew we had this meeting today, and she knew how important it was to try and convince District Two to join the rebellion. Haymitch cleared his throat.

“Any ideas, boy?” he asked me, and I shook my head.

“She had a shift in the hospital this morning, but they were going to release her in time for the meeting. I don’t know where she is,” I told him.

“Perhaps the cause that Miss Everdeen spoke so highly of doesn’t mean as much to her as she has led us all to believe,” said Magnow Rose of Two, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Her name is  _ Mrs. Mellark _ and this cause means everything to her. If she’s not here, then there’s a damn good reason for it,” I spat at him.

“What on earth could be more important than deciding the fate of the rebellion, Peeta?” asked Gale with an attitude.

“Don’t even get me started on  _ you _ . I know how filthy your hands are,” I spat back.

“Easy, now, calm down. I’ll send a guard to the hospital to find out what the hell is keeping her,” Haymitch said, and he left the room for a moment.

“From what I know of Katniss, Peeta is right. She would be here if there wasn’t something more dire keeping her,” said Karis Paylor of Eight.

“So why don’t we know about it then? If it was so important, it could have been brought up and the meeting postponed,” said Clarabella Dustin of Five. “We risked a lot coming here. Have you no idea the magnitude of Capitol resistance in Five?”

“I agree with Miss Dustin,” said Pascasia Mazarinne of Nine.

“Katniss Everdeen was thrown into the title of the Mockingjay and didn’t even want it, and her desire to not be involved is showing,” said Lenerok Kifflin of Two.

“Watch your mouth, Two,” Finnick warned them.

“Katniss  _ Mellark _ has put her heart, her soul, and everything she’s ever had into the rebellion. You have no idea of the sacrifices she’s made,” Carolina spat at the table.

“And yet, she can’t sacrifice time to be here to decide the fate of the rebellion?” asked Lystra Eshwater of Ten.

“I can imagine she’s made a lot of sacrifices,” said Gale bitterly, and Calum and I both glared at him.

“You don’t know  _ shit _ about my sister,” Calum spat at him.

“Neither do you. Where have you been for most of her childhood, huh? Oh that’s right, hiding away in District Thirteen while the rest of us  _ starved _ to death!” Gale spat back.

“Calum,  _ no _ !” I exclaimed as I grabbed Calum as he lunged for Gale. The table erupted into arguments coming from people who were angry at Katniss for being late and from people who were defending her, and Carolina and I were both trying our hardest to prevent a fist fight from breaking out between Gale and Calum. It was so loud and so chaotic that none of us noticed the door opening.

“SHUT THE  _ FUCK _ UP, ALL OF YE!” came a very angry female voice, and the room went silent as everyone froze and looked towards the door. There, dressed in teal scrubs, a white doctor’s coat and stained head to toe in blood, Katniss stood furiously addressing the room. “Sit down, all of you.” Everyone sat down as she walked into the room. “Look at all of you, yelling as if we have an unlimited amount of time on this planet.”

“We were yelling about  _ you _ ,” spat Magnow Rose, and he stood. “You were late to the meeting. Very late. Late enough for us to believe that this cause clearly doesn’t matter to you and enough for us to decide that District Two will not be-”

“SIT DOWN!” Katniss snapped at him, and he froze.

“I will not be spoken to like that,” Magnow insisted.

“Fine, then I’ll speak to you like the  _ fucking _ adult that you are,” Katniss said. “I’m late. Half an hour late, or so I was told by the guard that came to fetch me. Do you want to know where I was? Do you want to know why I am covered in blood? It’s not mine. It is the blood that belongs to  _ seven hundred and fifty-three _ rebel soldiers and civilians that were injured in a battle between the Capitol and the rebels in District Five.” I looked over at the senators from District Five, Odeon Avisdee and Clarabella Dustin. Odeon, who hadn’t said a word, nodded in agreement, and Clarabella’s eyes went wide.

“That’s right, seven hundred and fifty-three wounded soldiers and civilians who are in desperate need of medical care from a  _ severely _ understaffed medical unit. Including me, there are twenty-three people who are trained in medicine that are taking care of these soldiers. They didn’t provide anyone else, because District Five believed that we had the capacity to handle them,” Katniss continued, and then she looked towards Odeon and Clarabella. “We  _ don't, _ for the record. We barely have the space for three hundred people in our hospital, let alone  _ seven hundred and fifty-three _ . That number does not include the fifty-seven people that died before I was dragged down here just to be told that my heart is not in the cause by someone who has continuously expressed a lack of a desire to join the rebellion because ‘they don’t like the terms’.” She neared District Two, and the two of them backed up just a little with fear in their eyes.

“Do you want to tell me my heart isn’t in the cause? Do you  _ really _ want to tell me that because I was late to a meeting because I was tending to the wounds of seven hundred and fifty-three rebel soldiers and civilians while you sit in your protective bubble safe from the Capitol because you can’t decide if you want to join our side or continue being the Capitol’s spoiled little lapdog, that  _ my fucking heart _ isn’t in the rebellion?” Katniss spat, nearing them and backing them into the table. “Is there anything else you want to say to me?” Both Magnow and Lenerok shook their heads. “Good. So while you’re wallowing in the safety of your little bubbles because you got snapped at, I’ll be tending to seven hundred and fifty-three dying soldiers and civilians, and if you don’t like that, you can kiss my ass like you do the Capitol’s.” She stood up and made her way to the door, everyone watching her in a stunned silence, but I watched her with admiration in my eyes. Suddenly, Finnick stood up.

“I’ll go to the hospital to help,” he said. “I’m not fully trained in medicine but I can at least try to do something to help.”

“Any helping hand counts,” said Katniss to him. I stood up, too.

“I’ll go, too,” I said. Karis Paylor and Kypp Jecker were the next to stand up.

“Us, too,” said Paylor. Before I knew it, almost every senator, from Johanna to Carolina to both senators from District Five, stood up. The only ones that remained seated were both District Two senators, Lystra Eshwater from District Ten and Gale, but Lystra soon joined as well. Gale was the last to stand.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help,” he said.

“Thank you... all of you, thank you,” she said to the room in a much more gentle tone. She turned when Haymitch put a hand on her shoulder.

“I ain’t sure what help I can be, but I’ll do what I can,” he said.

“They’ll appreciate it,” Katniss told him. “To the hospital, then.” The entirety of the senate, minus District Two, made their way to the hospital, but when I looked back, I could see District Two following cautiously behind. When we got there, Katniss stopped to face us. “Right, we’re currently trying to treat as many people as we can as quickly as we can. Does anyone here have medical experience?” Paylor, Finnick, Carolina, Cytherea Lewes from Eleven, Rufus Ripley from Ten, Zosia Verity from Eight and Beetee all raised their hands. “Right, you lot are all on what we call Critical 2, they’re your worst injured and hanging on by a thread to life. You’ll assist the medics who have been assigned to Critical 2, including me, where we are located in the emergency department. Haymitch, Gale, Peeta, Districts Five and Six, you’ll be assisting with Critical 1 in the recovery ward. The rest of you are on Minor Injuries in the maternity ward. Listen to the medics, do as you’re told. Get them fixed up and out as quickly as you can. Listen to Breea, she’ll tell you where they’re going when they’re tended to.”

“What if someone dies?” asked Gale.

“Better yet, Gale, you should help Serebella with the deceased. Change of plans, District Nine, jump on Critical 1. Peeta and Haymitch, you’re with me on Critical 2. We need both of your hands,” she instructed us. “Let’s go.”

I assisted Katniss and another medic on a surgery that involved the amputation of someone’s leg, which was difficult to watch. I happened to glance up for a second, watching as the two senators from District Two walked around with shock on their faces, bending down to talk to wounded soldiers and civilians. “Peeta, I need you to keep that gauze close by,” I heard Katniss say.

“Sorry,” I replied. “I think District Two is on board.” She looked up, and nodded gently.

“Good. It’s about damn time. Perhaps they needed to see what the war really looks like,” she replied, then continued working on the patient.

It was easily eighteen hours before we were able to get the hospital back under control. A mix of medics and senators took short naps on the floor before returning to work and the kitchens brought food for everyone, both patients and medics. About twelve hours in, I pulled Katniss aside. “You need to rest. You won’t be able to keep going if you don’t,” I told her.

“I can’t, I’m needed,” she told me.

“Katniss, we’ll be fine for an hour. Do as your husband says and get some rest,” said the medic that had been working with us.

“Forty-five minutes,” she said, and I brought her out to the lobby to sit on a chair.

“You have no idea how proud I am of you. See? I told you that you belonged in medicine,” I told her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“I never wanted to be, but I was born for it. That much I’ll admit,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder. Suddenly, she spotted Cailean working with Calum on minor injuries. “When did Cailean get here?”

“A few more volunteers that aren’t in the senate came a few hours ago,” I told her. “Now shush and rest. You won’t do anyone any good if you’re underslept.” She let out a sigh and snuggled up next to me, dozing off very quickly given that she was exhausted.

Twenty hours after the soldiers and civilians arrived, the hospital was back to the way it was before. All patients had been treated and tended to. In total, a hundred and sixty-three people died, but everyone else survived. Once things calmed down, District Two called for another senate meeting, and all of us with our bloodstained and sweat-covered clothes sat at the table as we prepared to hear what District Two had to say. Magnow Rose stood and addressed the senate.

“District Two has decided to join the rebellion. Lenerok and I have both agreed to represent District Two. Being the main location of the Capitol’s military, we don’t see a lot of what happens on the battlefield... but today, we did. And we want to see an end put to the terrors that the Capitol has thrown on us. To put Mrs. Mellark’s words to use, we no longer wish to be the Capitol’s lapdog.” And he sat back down. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Katniss smile.


	12. Chapter XI: Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta and Katniss chat on the beach and are joined by Finnick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall’ — Simon and Garfunkel

_They told me they hadn’t seen her. I was angry with her and I wanted her to know how angry I was that she dared to lie to me telling me she loved me, getting my hopes up only to go back to ignoring me and pretending like I didn’t exist. Even worse, being trapped deep inside the earth in an underground base seemed to only fuel my anger. I had to get out. I had to get outside, get some fresh air and get outside. I climbed the steps to the main entrance into Thirteen - it was forbidden to leave without permission, but I didn’t care. I needed to get outside. When I opened the doors, the smell of rain hit me, and leaning against the wall of the cave, covered and dry, was Katniss. She appeared to be watching the rain._

_“Katniss,” I said somewhat coldly. She didn’t turn around. “Oh, so you’re back to ignoring me, huh? You tell me you love me and now you’re ignoring me. Are we going back to the way we were before the Games?”_

_“You don’t know how we were before the Games,” she replied._

_“I don’t know how we were before the Games? Of all people, ME? Katniss, I was in love with you!” I shouted at her._

_“And yet, you waited until we were both about to die and on live television to say anything about it,” she replied calmly._

_“You have a lot of nerve-”_

_“Peeta, can you please? I need the rain.” I paused. She sounded sad, almost as if she wanted to be alone. Of course she did._

_“What do you have to be sad about?” I asked her. I had lost my entire family, with the exception of one of my two older brothers, and she was here sad? She didn’t lose her family. Even if it wasn’t the family she knew, she still didn’t lose them._

_“If you’re going to be cruel, please, just leave me alone,” she said. She still didn’t look at me. In fact, she hadn’t moved at all. What was I doing? This was the woman I loved. Even if she didn’t love me back, I still loved her, so why was I being so mean to her?_

_“Why are you out here?”_

_“Because I wanted to be alone.”_

_“But why here? I mean, we can get into a lot of trouble being out here.”_

_“I miss the rain.” I waited a moment before I approached her, and I stood beside her and looked at her face. She had been crying. Her eyes were red and there were tear stains down her cheeks._

_“Just in general, or...”_

_“It used to rain so much... in Hebridia, I mean. All the time, almost every day. I could count the days that it didn’t rain on my finger. But it’s not the same. I miss the rain, and I miss the smell of the ocean.”_

_“Was the arena anything like it?” She smiled gently and gave a small chuckle, then looked down and shook her head as she sniffled._

_“No. No, that was warm and humid. It was always cold, in Hebridia.” She looked at me. “You’re angry with me, aren’t you? You think I was lying in the arena?”_

_“Well, it sure looks like it.” She shook her head again, then looked back out at the rain. “Then why have you been ignoring me?”_

_“A lot happening. I found out two of my brothers and my father survived.”_

_“Most of my family didn’t,” I told her. She closed her eyes briefly, and I saw another tear escape from her eye._

_“I know... and I’m sorry... I should have been there for you. It wasn’t fair for me to shut you out.” I let out a sigh._

_“Don’t be... I shouldn’t have been angry with you. You went through a lot of shit, too. We both did. It’s not fair to be angry at you.” She glanced over at me, then walked towards me and straight into my arms, holding onto me tightly._

_“I do love you, Peeta... I want you to believe me,” she said, her voice shaking. Her face was buried in my chest as I held her tightly._

_“Shhh, I do... I do believe you,” I told her. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”_

_“Well, I don’t blame you.” She pulled her head back to look up at me, tears streaming down her face. “I was so awful to you...” I wiped the tears from her face._

_“We were both awful to each other... but not anymore.” I gave her a smile, and then she returned it. After wiping her tears, I caught her chin beneath my finger and brought her lips to mine, kissing her as I held her with the rain pelting the world around us. She broke the kiss first, mostly because I was easily half a foot taller than her, and then she laughed, took my hands and pulled me out of the cave and into the rain. “Katniss!”_

_“Come on, Peeta! It’s only water!” she cried, letting go of my hands and dancing in the rain. She paused, and looked up at the sky. “Tha an t-uisge a’ cumail spioradan nan daoine a dh’falbh o chionn fhada...”_

_“What’s that mean?” I asked her, stepping closer to her. Her back was to me._

_“It’s an old Hebridean idiom. It means ‘the rain holds the spirits of those long gone’,” she replied._

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

The entrance to District Fourteen was deep inside of a cave on the deserted island that disguised us. Fourteen wasn’t nearly as strict as Thirteen about going outside, mostly because all that was around us was a tiny island with nothing on it and lots and lots of ocean. In the distance, of course, one could see the shores of the land north of District Seven, but it was very far off. I stood on the shore with my bare feet in the water. I wore a dress similar to the dresses we wore in Hebridia, cream-coloured muslin with a tartan cloth in the colours of the Fòlais family. I stood where the waves met the sand, my feet sinking down into the wet sand as the waves came and washed it all away. My eyes were looking out at the sparkling sapphire waves of the ocean. It wasn’t the ocean of Hebridia, but it was pretty damn close.

“Thought I’d find you out here,” I heard my husband’s voice say behind me, and I smiled gently. The smells of home paired with the voice of my much beloved husband - I couldn’t be happier.

“Take your shoes off, if you’re coming down here, and roll up your trousers, or they’ll get wet,” I told him.

“Roll up my what?” Peeta asked me, and I turned to face him.

“Your trousers,” I replied, wondering why he wasn’t understanding me. Isn’t trousers a synonym for pants?

“What’s ‘bree-gish?” he asked me, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“ _Briogais_ ,” I said. “The Gàidhlig word for ‘trousers’. Sorry, I thought I was speaking English.”

“I can’t imagine what learning English had to be like for you. You didn’t speak a word of it when you got here, did you?” Peeta asked me as he took off his shoes and socks. “What are these?”

“Shoes are _brogan_ and socks are _stoicannean,_ ” I replied. “No, it wasn’t easy, but I had to learn quickly. Thankfully, my uncle met Agnessa when he did, otherwise he, Prim and I likely would haven't learned English.”

“Wouldn’t have?” he asked me.

“What did I say?”

“Would haven’t.” I laughed again and shrugged, then turned back to the sea.

“English is hard.”

“That’s how I feel about your language.” He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me, pressing his lips to my cheek and resting his chin on my shoulder. “I like this dress.”

“It was my mother’s,” I told him. “Remember when you asked me if the Quarter Quell arena was like Hebridia? This is more like it. Colder, less humid, cakey sand rather than fine... the saltwater sticks to your skin and in your hair. And the gulls... I missed the sound of the gulls.” I looked up as a gull flew overhead and cawed.

“They had them in Four, didn’t they?” I nodded, recalling our visit to District Four on the Victory Tour.

“One shit on your head, remember?” We shared a small laugh.

“I like to try and forget about that one.”

“I don’t, it was hilarious!”

“I can’t wait until it happens to you.”

“It has, dozens of times. You’re not Hebridean if you don’t get shat on by a seagull.” A wave came up and crashed against our feet, reaching up to our calves.

“Geez, that’s cold!” Peeta said, letting go of me and running from the water, and I watched him with amusement.

“I said it was cold!” I said to him, and I followed him to a dry part of the sand and sat down, pulling him to sit down with me. He wrapped himself around me and held me between his legs, kissing my cheek and resting his chin on my shoulder.

“It’s like the Quell, almost... You and I, sitting on a beach...” He leaned me back so he could lower his lips to mine. “...kissing under the sunset.”

“Not sunset, though, it’s midday,” I teased.

“How’s the hospital?”

“Under control, for now. We’ve lost a few more patients but not many, and others who were part of the Critical 1 group have been able to go to rooms.”

“That’s good... What about Annie and the baby? I know Finnick’s been an absolute mess with the two of them being unwell. He’s been trying his hardest to take care of Killick but I think he’s struggling.”

“I’m glad you’ve been to see him. I haven’t seen much of him besides the day that medical ship came in. I’d like to visit with Annie, too. Maybe they’d like to come out here, get their feet in the sand.”

“Haymitch scheduled another senate meeting.” I groaned.

“Of course he did,” I said with unenthusiasm, and Peeta chuckled.

“Don’t let District Two hear that.”

“I made them shit themselves once, I’ll do it again if I have to.” He laughed, and then kissed my cheek again.

“I admire the hell out of you, you know that, right? You are something else, and I love it.”

“At least someone does. Gale _hated_ that about me. Absolutely hated it. He didn’t like me challenging him.”

“Well, I love a good challenge. That’s why I’m the better option, right?” I giggled a little, then looked up at him and placed a hand on his cheek. “You always will be...” He kissed me again. “So... What’s this boring meeting about this time?”

“Now that we’ve got all the districts, it’ll probably be about the next step. The Capitol is really fighting back, but with District Two now against them, hopefully it means that within the next few weeks or months, their Peacekeeper force will diminish, leaving them vulnerable.”

“Weeks or months? The war’s _still_ being allowed to go on?”

“Katniss, honey, wars don’t end in a day.”

“I know that, Peeta. But this is going on three years, now. The plan was to ratify the districts and invade the Capitol.”

“And looking at Capitol resistance, we clearly don’t have the manpower to do that. Gale, Beetee and Cailean are developing weapons that may be used to bring down the Capitol.”

“Gale I’m not surprised about, but Cailean? Developing weapons? He developed technology to protect us and to heal us, but he’s not about weapons.”

“I guess he’s just working with them then. I don’t know. He’s a real genius, though, and that’s probably why he’s there.”

“He gets it from our father.”

“ _You_ get it from your father.”

“I’m an obstetrician, like my mother.”

“And a genius like your father. Remember the tracker jacker antivenom?”

“He’d already worked out the basic formula, I just put it together.”

“No, you made it work. Don’t undermine yourself, Katniss. You’re absolutely brilliant.”

“You’re required to say that because you’re biased.”

“Can’t help that I’m married to the most incredible woman in all of Panem.”

“You bloody buttkisser.” He laughed, then buried his lips in my neck. “When this is over, I think I want to move to District Four... I miss the ocean, and I’ll miss it too much if we go back to Twelve.”

“But Twelve is our home...”

“I don’t think I can live there anymore. Too many awful memories...” Peeta let out a sigh.

“My home is wherever you are, so I’ll go wherever you want to go.” I paused for a moment, contemplating if I should say what was on my mind next.

“I want my children raised near the ocean.” I felt him tense up just a little.

“I thought you didn’t want children,” he said after a moment.

“If the war ends and we win, I believe the world will be a safer place to bring children into,” I told him.

“You want... _my_ children?”

“No, Peeta, I want Gale’s children. That’s exactly why I married you,” I said sarcastically.

“Katniss, I’m serious,” he said neutrally, and I sat up to look at him.

“Yes, Peeta... I want your children. I want to hold a wee bairn with your beautiful blue eyes looking back at me. I want him - or her - to have your beautiful blonde hair and if we have a son, I want him to look just like you, so I can say to everyone that I love two handsome men.”

“If we have a daughter, I want her to look like her beautiful mother. I want her to have your beautiful face, your gorgeous eyes and that stunning smile,” said Peeta, his palm holding my cheek. “And your voice. Not to forget your beautiful voice.”

“Why did I wait so long to confess my feelings? I could have been listening to you say such wonderful things to me for so much longer.” He kissed me again, this time much more passionately, and then suddenly, Peeta picked his head up, having caught something out of the corner of his eye.

“Did you see Finnick come out here?” he asked me quietly, and I glanced in the direction that he was looking.

“No...” I sat up, this time sitting next to Peeta instead of in his lap. “Finnick!” Finnick glanced over to me. In his lap was little Killick, who was busying himself with a seashell. They were easily a good fifty feet away from us. “Come over here, won’t you?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he said as he approached us, balancing Killick on his hip, “but I needed to be out here.”

“I know how that feels,” I said as he sat down beside us. Little Killick crawled out of his lap and approached me, showing me his seashell.

“Hebridia, right? Is this anything like it?” Finnick asked me as I took little Killick on my lap.

“Very similar to it. There’s more islands - well, maybe not now...” I said somewhat sadly.

“It’s too cold up here. I wish it were warmer,” Finnick replied.

“With you on that,” Peeta said with a chuckle, giving Killick his finger.

“How’s Annie?” I asked.

“Doing great. She and the baby are both doing fine. You did a great job with them... and I never said thanks,” Finnick replied.

“No thanks necessary, all part of the job,” I told him.

“We called her Ariel, the baby. After an old story about a beautiful mermaid with fiery red hair. She’s got Annie’s red hair,” Finnick told us.

“That’s a beautiful name. I was named after my great, great, great grandmother. She was the first to have the name, and then it was passed down,” I said.

“What, Katniss?” asked Finnick.

“No, that’s my middle name, actually... I didn’t like having a name that every mother on my father’s side had so I went by my middle name, and when I came here to Panem, it got dropped because ‘Panem people don’t have middle names’ and I was already going by Katniss. I didn’t realise how much I would miss it,” I said.

“What is it?” asked Peeta.

“It’s Caitriona, an ancient Hebridean name. Even so, I still don’t feel it belongs to me. It feels like it belongs to my grandmother,” I told him.

“Better than what I was named after,” said Peeta. “My mother always told me that I was an unexpected surprise, that she didn’t know she was pregnant with me until it was too late. So my parents named me after pita bread.” Finnick and I let out a laugh, and then Peeta joined us in laughter.

“I’d guess I’d rather be named after a long line of grandmothers than pita bread,” I said with a laugh. “But I like your name a lot, and I can’t picture you with any name other than Peeta.” He smiled at me, and then the three of us fell into silence, listening to the ocean waves and the occasional babble from Killick.

“What do you think they’ll do next for the rebellion?” asked Finnick, breaking the silence.

“Drag their feet like they always have and cause more people to die at the hands of the Capitol,” I told him. “You know, today is July 3rd. Tomorrow is the reaping. And until the Capitol goes down, there will be another Games.”

“What Games are we at now?” asked Peeta.

“We were the seventy-fourth, the Quell was the seventh-fifth, it’s been three years, so... seventy-eighth,” I replied.

“Seventy-eight,” Finnick repeated. “I hear they’re like they used to be, years ago. During the early days of the Games.”

“Like they were in the days of Lucy Gray Baird,” I muttered. Both Finnick and Peeta looked at me confused, having no idea what the hell I was talking about.

“Katniss, who’s Lucy Gray Bard?” asked Peeta.

“A ghost who disappeared in her tracks,” I replied, and Killick drew my attention by squealing over a hermit crab walking in the surf. I ran a hand through his beautiful dirty-blonde curls, the same possessed by his father. “She was the victor of the Tenth Hunger Games, and she was from District Twelve.”

“The other victor from Twelve?” Peeta asked me. “But I thought nobody knew her name! They said in school that the names of the first few Victors of the Games were unknown...”

“I met her cousin,” I told him. “The old lady I told you about... her name was Maude Ivory. She used to sing at the Hob with her family. They called themselves the Covey.”

“How did she win? Did she say?” Finnick asked, and I shook my head.

“Maude Ivory didn’t go into detail about how Lucy won, but she told me that the Tenth Hunger Games was the first year of mentors... and that President Snow had been her mentor before he became president.” I heard both Peeta and Finnick take a sharp intake of breath.

“What else did this woman say?” Peeta asked me.

“Nothing else. I have another meeting with her soon, whenever she’s ready to talk. I spoke to her first on the same day Annie went into labour. But please, lads... keep this information to yourselves. Maude Ivory told me to use what she knows as a weapon, but it can only be used once and must be detonated at the right time,” I said, and they both agreed to be sworn into secrecy.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

We spent the day on the beach, and when Katniss and Killick went to play in the surf, Finnick and I were left alone. “She said she wants to have children, after the war,” I said suddenly. Finnick looked at me.

“That’s good, Peeta,” he replied.

“Is it hard? Being a father?” I asked, and Finnick shook his head.

“Well, it has its moments, but it’s mostly good things, which makes all the difficult things worth it,” he replied. We both watched as Katniss picked up Killick by the hands as a wave came in and he laughed when she set him back down. “She’ll make a great mom.”

“She really will, won’t she?” I asked. “She said before that she didn’t want children, but then today, said she would if the Games didn’t exist.”

“Then I guess you’ve got something else to fight for.”

“A future for my children, yes. Something she keeps emphasising.” I watched her with admiration. She was beautiful in that traditional Hebridean dress she wore. It looked like it belonged on her. Her hair was loose and her chocolate brown curls were lifted by the salty breeze whenever a gust blew by. I watched as she picked up Killick and he pointed to a gull that cawed as it flew overhead, and she laughed when he babbled something about it. “She wants to move to Four...”

“Why Four? Isn’t Twelve your home?” Finnick asked me.

“My home, yes... but it was never hers. She was respected at home because of her status as a midwife and then her status as a victor, but she was always treated differently. She always stuck out like a sore thumb. She’s not a girl meant for the mines, she’s a girl meant for the sea.”

“Would you go with her? If she moved to Four?”

“Wherever she goes, I go. Twelve was firebombed, there’s nothing there anymore. They can rebuild, sure, but... I want Katniss to live where she’s happiest, and I think that’s wherever the ocean is.”

“You really love her, don’t you?” I turned to look at him, and he was watching me. I nodded. “We all thought your ‘star-crossed lovers’ bit was an act, us mentors.”

“It was at first, until it wasn’t.”

“When was it not?”

“She says she stopped fighting off her feelings for me sometime shortly before the Quell, but she told me she loved me on the beach. Sometime after that, we finally had time to sit down and talk about what we were and we decided we wanted to be together.”

“Those two years without her must have been hard.”

“Very hard. I don’t know why I agreed to it.”

“When we were rescued from the arena, all she could say was your name. I mean, I realised that your love wasn’t an act when you hit the forcefield and your heart stopped and how she reacted, but seeing how desperate she was for you, and how she couldn’t think of nor say anything but your name... Katniss can be a tough nut to crack, but it was obvious that she loved you.” We looked up at Katniss and Killick again, and they were walking towards us now. “It’s obvious that she loves you period.” Katniss approached us and set Killick down, and Killick toddled over to his father.

“What are you boys talking about?” she asked us, and I smiled at her.

“Nothing you haven’t heard,” I told her.

“Ah, talking about your dicks again?” she said, and Finnick and I both laughed. “Thought so, that’s all men ever do.”

“We weren’t talking about our dicks. Actually, Peeta was saying you want to move to District Four after the rebellion?” Finnick asked.

“I’d like to. I’ll take the ocean over mountains and grimey coal dust any day,” she replied, then looked up at the sun. “It’s getting late, almost dinner time. We’d best head in.” And that we did, wiping sand from our feet and putting our shoes back on before we went back into the cave, to go back underground.

Finnick took dinner in his room with Annie, while the rest of us sat at our usual table. It felt like school all over again. Calum and Cailean sat there along with Carolina, Johanna, and even Delly Cartwright, who had the flu for a while but was now feeling better. Even Haymitch was sitting with us, mostly in silence while all of us chatted away. He must have felt out of place, as he was an old man among kids, after all.

“I’ve been trying to learn Gàidhlig,” Delly said suddenly. “They don’t offer classes here anymore, only did in Thirteen. But I remember some of it.” She turned to Cailean. _“Tha Gàidhlig agad?_ ” 

“No, _mo charaid_ , it’s _‘A bheil Gàidhlig agad’_ , what you’ve just told Cailean is he has Gàidhlig, which is true, but if you’re asking him, then it’s ‘ _a bheil_ ’,” Katniss told her.

“Just never say that you live in a little house,” said Cailean.

“Why?” asked Delly with confusion.

“Because the word would be ‘ _taigh beag_ ’ and that’s also the same word for toilet,” said Cailean, and a couple of people at the table laughed.

“Why is it like that?” Delly asked him.

“Don’t know, that’s just how Gàidhlig is,” he replied.

“The word for spider translates literally to ‘damn wolf’. It’s _‘damhan-allaidh’_ ,” Katniss chimed in. Suddenly, we were joined by Gale, who stood awkwardly after approaching us. The table went silent.

“Does anyone mind if... if I join?” he asked.

“Not at all, have a seat,” Katniss said, forking a little bit of salad and eating it. He sat down between Haymitch and Carolina, sitting there silently and awkwardly as he ate. Katniss broke the silence first, addressing me, Cailean and Calum.

“So, when are you three announcing this little ‘secret’ you’ve been working on for ages?” she asked.

“A secret is a secret until it’s no longer a secret,” said Cailean.

“We’ll tell you when we’re ready,” said Calum.

“She’s been pressing me about it for ages,” I said with a chuckle, and I looked at her. “Quit being nosy, we’ll tell you soon.”

“I like being nosy,” she replied.

“Oh, and I get my ass kicked when _I’m_ being nosy,” I said, teasing her.

“Damn right you do,” she replied, taking another forkful of salad and eating it. Then Haymitch stood up.

“Think I’ll take this in my room,” he said.

“You all right, Dad?” Carolina asked her father, looking up at him with concern.

“Just an old man surrounded by children,” he said, and we all chuckled as he walked away.

“Guess that’s on him for choosing to hang out with a bunch of kids,” said Calum. Carolina turned to Johanna, who was pushing around a meatball on her plate.

“Johanna, you’re so quiet. Are you okay?” she asked her.

“Just tired of the rebellion dragging on, that’s all,” she said.

“Amen to that,” said Katniss. She took my hand under the table. “I’m quite exhausted, I think I’m ready for bed.” I knew what that meant. We had a secret code for communicating to each other that we wanted to have sex, and that was taking the other’s hand and expressing exhaustion.

“So am I, actually,” I replied. Gale glanced up at us, and I was sure he knew what we were actually saying.

“But it’s so early,” said Carolina.

“I spent most of the night in the hospital so I’m just tired,” Katniss told her.

“So what’s your excuse?” Gale asked me.

“Don’t sleep well without her,” I replied back. The two of us were staring at each other, but were both neutral.

“...at that thought, I’m kind of tired, too,” said Calum. When Katniss and I finally made it to our room, she turned around and wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her forehead against mine.

“Did you see the look on Gale’s face when we said we were going to bed?” she asked me, and I laughed.

“Yeah, I did, he was pissed,” I replied. “But I don’t want to talk about Gale... I just want you.” We collapsed onto the bed together, preparing for a rather long night ahead of us.


	13. Chapter XII: A Window To The Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss and Peeta attend a brief senate meeting, and then a weapons demonstration. Peeta finally mourns for his lost family.

_It was moments before the hovercraft carrying Katniss and her team away from District Thirteen would leave. President Coin had decided that the districts needed a little bit of encouragement to join the rebellion and asked both Katniss and me to lead two teams throughout the districts. We were promised that it wouldn’t be long, but no one could predict the future. Katniss had just changed out of her wedding dress when she approached me, standing mournfully behind her hovercraft. “I’m not gone yet, you still have a few minutes with me,” she said, and I smiled at her and wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly against my chest._

_“I don’t think I can do this,” I whispered to her._

_“It won’t be for long... We can have our happy ending when we’re all finished,” she said, holding me tightly._

_“But what if we don’t? What if I lose you?” I asked her._

_“I won’t let that happen,” she replied, and she pulled back to look at me. “And you need to say the same. You get back to me. Don’t let anyone or anything take you away from me, Peeta Mellark, do you hear me? Promise me.” She spoke rather sternly, and I just couldn’t help but smile._

_“I promise, Katniss Mellark.” It was the first time outside of the wedding ceremony that she had been addressed with my name. She broke her stern expression to smile, then took my face in her hands and kissed me._

_“I can’t believe I’m spending my first day as Mrs. Mellark leaving you for so long... I should be spending my night with you in your arms.”_

_“We’ll have another day, as long as we promise to stay with each other.” We shared another kiss when Gale approached us._

_“We’re on a tight schedule, we’ve gotta go,” he said, and both Katniss and I looked at each other. She tightened her grip on me and a tear formed at her eye._

_“Peeta... I don’t want to go,” she whispered to me._

_“Be strong, Katniss. It’ll be okay. We’ll see each other soon, yeah? We’ve already seen the worst in the arena... This is easy, right?” She smiled gently and nodded._

_“I love you, Peeta Mellark,” she said to me._

_“And I love you, Katniss Mellark,” I replied, and we shared one final deep, passionate kiss and held each other for just another moment before Gale cleared his throat. Katniss and I broke our hug and exchanged a glance, and just like in the arena, I watched her walk away from me. As she walked away, I felt Gale put a hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t look at him. I watched Katniss as she climbed into the hovercraft, then looked over her shoulder at me as Gale climbed in behind her, and then the door closed, the hovercraft lifted off and flew out of sight._

* * *

I woke up with a slight startle, the final image of Katniss’s hovercraft fading from my mind as I looked around and realised that I was safe and sound in District Fourteen, with the love of my life lying against my chest still nude from our actions the night before. I smiled as I looked at her and tightened my grip on her. I let this woman go for nearly two years and I wasn’t planning on letting her go again. If we had another mission, then we went together. Whatever it was, whether I was qualified or not or vice versa, we were going together. She must have felt me shifting because she flattened out her palm against my chest and ran her fingers through the small patch of chest hair I had started growing within the last few months.

“Mmm... morning...” she muttered sleepily, her eyes remaining closed as she adjusted her head to lay more comfortably.

“Good morning,” I said, placing my hand over hers. “I love you...”

“Love you, too,” she muttered.

“We have another boring meeting today,” I muttered back, and she groaned quietly and rolled into her back, covering her eyes with her forearm.

“Don’t remind me...” I chuckled, then rolled onto my side to kiss her cheek. “I have to go to the hospital today. Come and get me before it’s time? God forbid I’m late again.”

“I’d be glad to, it’s more time I get to spend with you,” I told her, kissing her cheek again, and she smiled, then raised her forearm to look at me and I pressed my lips against hers.

“I need a shower. Will you join me?” she asked me when we broke our kiss.

“Uh, yes, please,” I replied eagerly, and she laughed, and the two of us jumped up, still unclothed, to shower together.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

I only had about ten minutes before the meeting when I realised that I had to go and that I had skipped lunch. Peeta was supposed to come and get me beforehand so we could get lunch and go, but he never showed. I quickly grabbed lunch and made it to the command room with about four minutes to spare. The room was full, except for the two seats belonging to Calum and Peeta. Confused, I glanced over at Gale.

“Any sign of my husband or my brother?” I asked him, making sure to use the word ‘husband’. Gale shook his head, seemingly unbothered by the comment.

“What’s that?” he asked me as I forked some salad into my mouth.

“A chicken salad, I think,” I replied, and I looked closer at it. “...or tuna? I didn’t have time to get lunch or even to change. Peeta was supposed to come and get me from the hospital, but I guess he forgot.”

“Calum was supposed to meet me beforehand, too, but never did,” said Gale. I turned back to my salad and took another bite, then noticed Finnick appearing amused across the table.

“What are you laughing at?” I asked him.

“You stuffing your face,” Finnick replied.

“I didn’t have time to eat!” I cried. “Stop being so finicky, bloody hell.” He let out a laugh.

“Hilarious! That’s a good one... I’ll come up with one for you, too. How’s that sound, Kantmiss? Wait, that’s a compliment...” I let out a loud laugh, coughing as I inhaled a piece of meat. I felt a hand patting my back and it was Gale trying to help me.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said, coughing in between words. I grabbed my complimentary glass of water and took a sip of it, giving him a thumbs up. Once my coughing fit was over, I tried to shove another forkful of food into my mouth when the door opened and Calum and Peeta raced in looking out of breath, then sat down beside me on either side.

“My God, we made it,” Calum puffed.

“Are we late?” asked Peeta, equally as out of breath as Calum. I looked at the two of them with confusion and was about to speak when Haymitch’s voice made us all jump.

“You’re just in time, boys. Welcome to the meeting,” he said. “Sweetheart, you ain’t supposed to eat in here, put that away.”

“But I had to skip lunch! We’re very busy in the hospital! You try having to tend to the needs of hundreds of patients and not having time to eat!” I cried, my mouth full of salad.

“Put it away,” said Haymitch.

“All right, Mum,” I muttered, and those immediately around me chuckled as I put the top back on my container and slid it into the little cubby just under the table. Suddenly, a piece of paper dropped first in front of Peeta, then in front of me and then in front of Calum.

“What’s this?” asked Peeta, picking it up and looking at it.

“This is a list of everything that each district provides for the rebellion,” Haymitch announced to the room.

“District Ten - meat, District Eleven - produce, District Twelve... blank,” I said, putting down the paper and looking up at Haymitch. “Not exactly fair to ask a district that has been firebombed and currently has no people living in it for something.”

“You do provide something,” Haymitch said to us. “You’re both the face of the rebellion. You provide leadership, the hope that sparked the rebellion, and so much more.”

“The face of the rebellion, that’s useful,” I muttered quietly to both Peeta and Calum.

“We did spark the rebellion,” Peeta muttered back.

“You were supposed to meet me in the hospital so we could get lunch,” I whispered to him.

“I’m sorry, we got caught up,” he whispered back, taking my hand under the table and giving it a squeeze.

“I didn’t know your little secret was more important.”

“It’s not, you know that. I just lost track of time, I’m sorry.”

“Did either of you hear the last thing I said, District Twelve?” Haymitch’s voice made us both jump, again, and we both looked up at him as he stood behind us.

“You were talking about the importance of maintaining production because supplies help win the rebellion,” said Calum, saving the two of us.

“That’s great, Thirteen, but I wasn’t asking you,” Haymitch said to Calum, and he walked away from us. As he walked away, I took a moment to fork some salad into my mouth, and Peeta chuckled beside me. “Now, Thirteen has a weapons demonstration scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, with the help of Three, and it’d be nice if all the districts can be there to witness it. Know what is being used against the Capitol. Tomorrow, two P.M. Meeting adjourned.”

“Well, that was quick,” I said, pulling out my salad again as Haymitch left and some of the senators dispersed.

“I think he’s mad at us,” Peeta replied.

“I’m annoyed at you, I was almost late because I was expecting you to come and get me. I was looking forward to having lunch with you before the meeting, Peeta,” I told him.

“I know, Katniss, and I’m sorry, I don’t know what else you want me to say. I’m sorry you were late and I’m sorry you had to skip lunch,” he replied, and I let out a sigh.

“Sorry for being a bitch,” I told him, then I resumed eating my salad.

“You’re not being a bitch, honey. I promise I’ll meet you tomorrow for lunch,” he said, and he put his hand on my back and leaned in to kiss my cheek, then smiled at me. “Don’t think I love you any less because I forgot to take you to lunch.”

“Oh I don’t, but I’ll hold it over your head until we’re eighty,” I said with a smile, and he laughed and scooted his chair closer to me.

“Our little surprise took a little longer than we anticipated,” said Calum. “Cailean is there now, I’d better go help him out now that I have time.” He stood up. “You coming, Peeta?”

“He’ll be spending the next hour with me because he owes me that much for forgetting about me,” I said to my brother.

“Take my advice, Calum. When you get married, don’t _ever_ forget about the promises you make to your wife,” Peeta told him. When we were mostly alone, save for a couple of senators that were chatting away out of earshot, Peeta asked me, “So, what do you want to do?”

“First, I’m going to eat the rest of this salad, and then I want you to take me back to our room and show me exactly how sorry you are,” I told him, tapping his nose with my fork.

“Will I be begging for mercy?” he asked me with a sly smile on his face.

“Don’t want to spoil the surprise,” I replied. “Just go easy on me, this salad smells funny and I don’t want to turn my stomach inside out.” He was very gentle, of course, because Peeta Mellark was a gentleman in every sense.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

_We arrived in Thirteen by hovercraft a few hours after being rescued from the arena. I sat by Katniss’s side the entire time she was asleep, holding her hand and squeezing it every so often to remind her that I was still by her side. She had called for me so desperately and held onto me so tightly that I knew that her confession of love for me wasn’t meant for the cameras - it was meant for me. I smiled as I thought of our futures together. Every night, I would kiss her and tell her how much I loved her, and whenever she was ready, I would make love to her and show her exactly how much she meant to me. I blushed slightly at the thought of making love to her. She was a beautiful woman, and the thought of making love to her made my insides tingle._

_I thought about how long I’d been in love with her. I first saw her when she was eight years old, and she sang what was called the Valley Song in front of the class. I learned later that her father, or I suppose her uncle, taught it to her and she sang it to the class, even though she didn’t speak a word of English. That same day, I saw her sitting beside the tree at lunch by herself. We were eight years old, and she wore her beautiful brown hair in two braids. I sat down beside her with a smile on my face. “Hi,” I said to her, and she just looked at me. “I hope you don’t mind me sitting here... No one should have to sit alone.”_

_“Chan eil mi a’ bruidhinn Beurla, tha mi duilich,” she said in a language I couldn’t understand._

_“I don’t know what you said... but that’s okay. We don’t have to talk,” I said to her. It took her maybe about a year of constant exposure to the English language to really be able to understand it, but she always slipped up. Even now, she still slipped up, and it was one of my favourite things about her. As she slept in the hospital bed in Thirteen, I smiled and gently brushed her hair out of her face._

_“I love you, Katniss,” I whispered to her, and I leaned forward to kiss her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open sleepily, and she groaned as the pain settled into her body. “Hey... Shh, shh, it’s okay...” She tugged at the mask on her face. “Leave that on, you need it.”_

_“Off,” she said, pulling it off of her face and holding it out of my reach, dropping it on the floor on the other side of the bed. I couldn’t help but laugh, and her hand reached for my face._

_“Hey there, gorgeous,” I said to her, and she smiled. “How’re you feeling?”_

_“Toasted,” she said, and I laughed. “You?”_

_“A little crispy, but I’m in good shape,” I said to her. “Get some rest, okay?” She shook her head. “Katniss, I’m not going anywhere. I promise I won’t leave your side, okay? You need to rest.”_

_“Don’t want to,” she muttered back. “I just want you.”_

_“I’m okay, and I’m here, and I’m safe, and I’m all yours. You have nothing to worry about,” I told her. She nodded gently, then her hand fell from my face and she reached for my hand instead, and I gave it a tight squeeze. We sat like that quietly until she drifted off to sleep again, and I gently kissed her lips to remind her again of how much I loved her._

_She was confined to bed rest for three days, and for most of it, she was relatively quiet. On the third day, when she was discharged to the room she would share with her mother and sister, I arrived to take her there myself when I found her sitting on her bed with her knees to her chest and looking forlorn. “Hey,” I said as I approached her, wrapping my arms around her and leaning in for a kiss, but she turned her face away. “What’s the matter, are you okay?”_

_“Fine,” she muttered._

_“Well... I’m here to take you to your room... Are you ready to go?”_

_“I can get there myself.” She seemed somewhat cold, and definitely wanted to be alone._

_“I don’t think the doctors want you going by yourself...”_

_“Can Gale take me?” I felt a pang in my heart, and jealousy overtook me. I wasn’t going to let Gale anywhere near Katniss - my Katniss._

_“He’s busy,” I said, and she let out a sigh._

_“All right,” she replied, and she slid off the bed and headed towards the exit to the hospital. I followed behind, not getting too close to her. I was angry she’d asked for Gale to take her back to her room instead. Did this mean that it was really him she had feelings for and not me? I should have known. I shouldn’t have opened my heart to her only for her to rip it out and stomp on it and demand I take it back. When we got to her room, she pressed the button to open the door. “Thanks,” she said, and she walked into the room._

_“Katniss-” I began, but then the door closed, leaving me on the other side heartbroken and furious. That confession of love wasn’t meant for me after all - it was meant for the cameras. But why, then, was she so desperate for me on the hovercraft? It wasn’t Gale she was calling for, it was me. When she was in shock, when Finnick and Haymitch were the first people she saw, she didn’t think of anyone else but me. So why was she acting so cold to me all of a sudden? Perhaps she realised that she now had a choice of who she could have, and it was clear to me that I wasn’t her pick._

* * *

I pushed the memory from my mind. She was mentally disoriented, of course she chose me. It was evident from every kiss she gave me, every time she told me she loved me and every night in our bed, when it was me making love to her and not Gale. I don’t know why I was so jealous when, instead of me, she chose Gale to walk with her to the weapons demonstration the day after the meeting. They’d been friends for a long time, even if they hadn’t been so friendly as of late. Perhaps he was apologising to her, and I hoped he was. She deserved an apology from that asshole. When I arrived at the weapons demonstration a little early, I could see all the seats filled by the other senators chatting away while Katniss was near Gale, Cailean and Beetee on the demonstration floor next to what looked like a motorised bicycle.

Katniss was seated on it, and Cailean and Beetee were standing away from it while Gale had his hands next to hers on the handlebars explaining something to her. She nodded, and when Gale stepped away, she pressed down on some handle and the engine roared, drowning out her scream of terror as the motorised bicycle lurched forward. Gale quickly stopped it and grabbed it while she climbed off of it, and when the moment of fear passed, the two of them laughed. Gale then pointed me out to her and she looked behind her at me, then smiled, turned back to Gale to say something and then turned back to me, jogging across the demonstration floor to me and wrapping her arms around me, but I didn’t hug her back.

“Hey!” she said happily, moving in for a kiss, but I pulled my face out of her reach. “Peeta...”

“Gale seems friendly again. What happened?” I asked sternly.

“Peeta,” she said, letting go of me. “He apologised for his actions and we made up. You don’t have to be so jealous.”

“He tried to tell you that you belonged to him,” I reminded her.

“And he admitted that it was unfair and has apologised for it, and he’s going to apologise to you, too, after the demonstration,” she told me. “So please, get that stick out of your ass and kiss me, won’t you?”

“I do not have a stick up my ass, I have a Gale up my ass,” I said stupidly, not even realising what I said.

“Well geez, looks like I should be the one feeling jealous,” she said, wrapping her arms around me again and resting her chin on my chest. “Come on, Peeta... kiss me, won’t you?” I sighed, then pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Thank you, _mo ghaol_.”

“You know, that word sounds like ‘Gale’,” I said as we went to our seats.

“You are such a drama queen,” she said to me, taking my hand and leading me to our seats.

“I’m not a drama queen, I just don’t trust him,” I told her as we sat down, and she pulled me closer to her and brought her lips to my ear.

“Who’s dick is in me every night, hm?” she whispered to me, causing me to blush slightly. She chuckled, then kissed my cheek. “You know I love you, Peeta. Don’t let him ruffle your feathers.”

“I’m not, I just don’t trust him,” I said defiantly.

“Remind me to remind you of how much I love you later, I think the demonstration is going to start,” she said, and she slipped her hand into mine. Haymitch slipped in just as Gale, Cailean and Beetee took the floor. “Look who’s late this time,” Katniss whispered to me, and I struggled to suppress the chuckle as I watched Calum get up from his seat to stand in front of the three men.

“Hello and welcome to the Weapons Demonstration, presented to you by Districts Thirteen and Three. It is known that District Thirteen once provided nuclear weapons and graphite mining to Panem, and District Three provides technology and technological advances. We have now come together to present to you some new technology that has been developed strictly for the rebel forces to be used against the Capitol in an effort to win the war,” said Calum. “I present to you my brother, Cailean Fòlais, who is the brains behind a lot of the technological designs here.” Cailean stepped forward, and it became hard to distinguish the two apart from each other.

“Hello, I am Cailean Fòlais and I have designed what you see here before you that my sister, Katniss, so kindly demonstrated briefly for us before the demonstration began,” said Cailean, referring to Katniss. “What you see here was something first created during a war in the middle of the twentieth century known as a motorcycle, and this particular model has a special force field to protect against bullets.” I watched as Gale climbed onto the motorcycle and Calum raised a gun pointed at him. Under Cailean’s command, he fired the gun, and Gale remained unharmed as the bullets bounced off of the force field surrounding the motorcycle. Beetee then stepped forward.

“The motorcycle also features its own set of weapons that can be used against enemy forces that are revealed by the push of a button and fired using the same button, to provide for ease of weapons discharge,” he explained, and Gale pressed a button and the weapons appeared, eliciting a gasp from some members of the senate. Through the demonstration, they showed off some guns and other weapons, even showing off Katniss’s bow and arrow, which was entirely Cailean’s design. He called her forward to demonstrate it, explaining that she used it in battle in District Eight the day the hospital was bombed. She held a small black cylinder in her hand and pressed a small button, the cylinder turning into a bow, and on her back was the quiver full of arrows that appeared from what looked like a backpack. Cailean had her fire one of the arrows at a target, causing it to erupt into flames, and then explained that there were normal arrows, arrows that burst into flames upon hitting the target and arrows that blew up the target. The rest of the demonstration was just more weapons.

“What about medical equipment?” came the voice of Cytherea Lewes after raising her hand. “We’ll need field medics to have protection and more advanced medicine.”

“My dearest and darling sister is working on that with me as we speak,” said Cailean, and I looked at Katniss, who looked just as confused as I was.

“You are?” I whispered to her, and she looked at me.

“It’s news to me,” she whispered back.

“Our medics will be provided with the best protection that we can give them and will be armed with the best medical equipment that the mind can create. Katniss was the mastermind behind liquid temporary stitches that are sprayed over a wound and last for about four hours. They are the perfect help in a crunch and are very sturdy. She used them on me several times,” Cailean told the senate. “She is also the mastermind behind a tracker jacker antivenom that successfully worked on rescued brainwashed prisoners taken by the Capitol.”

I remembered when she was creating that antivenom. She had the leftover formula from her father’s notes before he died, but it wasn’t complete, and his formula wasn’t working, so Katniss started from scratch and, using the formula as a base, created her own that was custom to whoever would be receiving the vaccine. I remember once when we were lying in bed at two in the morning, she was wide awake while I tried to sleep, her mind distracted by trying to find out why her vaccine wasn’t working, when she shot up and shouted, _“Blood type! It’s related to blood type! That’s why the only three who showed improvement recovered, they were all the same blood type!”_ Within a week, she’d had the vaccine figured out, and suddenly, tracker jacker brainwashing wasn’t a concern any longer.

When the demonstration was over, Katniss pulled her brother aside to talk to him in Gàidhlig, and when she was done, she returned to my side. “Looks like I’ll be spending time in the labs again,” she said.

“That’s okay, you’re an absolute genius,” I told her, kissing the top of her head. “What’s next on your agenda?”

“I’m done with the hospital for the day and to be honest, I don’t really feel like going to the labs right now to get started. So...” Her tone changed, and she brought herself closer to me, and I felt her hand grab my crotch.

“ _Katniss_ ,” I hissed, grabbing her wrist and pulling her hand away, looking around to see if anyone noticed. I could feel my pants getting just a little bit tighter.

“Who’s the prude now?” she whispered seductively, and I felt the heat from the blood rushing to my cheeks. “Remember I promised to remind you how much I loved you?”

“You want to do that right now?” I asked her in a whisper, and she nodded.

“I always want to show you how much I love you,” she told me with a smile. I was about to reply when I caught Gale approaching us.

“Behave yourself, your boyfriend’s coming over here,” I told her, and she playfully smacked me and wrapped her arms around my torso. “Hello, Gale,” I said when he approached us.

“Peeta,” he said, and he glanced at Katniss for a moment before looking back at me. “I just wanted to apologise. Katniss told me she told you about what happened between us, and why we were so cold to each other... I hadn’t accepted that she was never mine to begin with, and I was jealous and upset and I should never have told her that you were a bad fit for her. It’s been made clear to me that she loves you and that you love her, and that I should be happy that she found someone who cares about her and treats her how she deserves to be treated.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate that,” I said to the dark-haired man, and he held out a hand for me to shake. I took it, and we shook for a truce.

“Just keep in mind that if you ever hurt her, I’ll still kick your ass,” he said. “This girl’s like a little sister to me.”

“Fair enough, I felt the same way about my sister,” I replied. “Even though she was older than me.”

“Didn’t know you had a sister,” Gale replied.

“She might as well have been, she was my brother’s best friend and his wife. She died in the firebombing,” I told him, and Gale nodded.

“I remember your family. I was trying to get them out, but your mother didn’t want to leave and your father wasn’t going to leave her behind, but told your brothers to get out. Your oldest brother wouldn’t leave, and his wife wouldn’t leave him,” Gale replied. I didn’t want to hear what happened to my family in the firebombing, mostly because I didn’t want to think about it. I nodded gently, glancing away and looking down at the floor. I felt Gale’s hand on my shoulder, the same way he had placed it there the day Katniss flew away in the hovercraft, and he left. I felt Katniss’s grip on me tighten and she brought my eyes to hers.

“Are you okay?” she asked me, and I nodded gently, then I brought my head down to give her a kiss.

“You still want to remind me of how much you love me?” I whispered to her, just wanting to forget about everything Gale had said. I didn’t want to think about the way that my family died. Three years, they’d been dead, and I still hadn’t fully processed it. Katniss brought me to our room and sat me on our bed, crawling onto my lap and bringing my lips to hers to kiss me. I had to force myself to kiss her back, not because I wasn’t attracted to her, but because my mind finally began to mourn the loss of my family.

My father and I were the closest. Even after the Games when everyone else said I’d changed, he still came to visit me and we still baked together. It was my father who taught me how to bake, ever since I was a little kid, and he’d also told me about how he fell in love with Katniss’s mother. Well, adoptive mother.

My mother and I weren’t close at all. Sometimes, it felt as if she resented me for ever being born. She’d beaten me quite a bit, and the day I gave Katniss the bread after her father (or rather, uncle) died in the mine explosion, she’d beaten me rather harshly. But she was still my mother, and as her son, I still loved her.

My oldest brother, Christos, wasn’t always the kindest to me, but he was still my big brother. He always looked out for me, Donnel and even Aaricia when she was around and kept us out of trouble. If he had been young enough when my name had been called at the reaping, I’m sure he would have volunteered in my place, like Katniss had done for Prim.

Aaricia might as well have been my sister and was practically the adopted Mellark child who was three years older than me, and she played the role of such a loving sister. When my brothers and my mother were being mean to me, I would run from the bakery and go to her home, and she would comfort me, inviting me to lay in bed with her and holding me as I cried when we were very young. I remember how happy I was for her the day she married my brother, solidifying the fact that she was my sister for real, and I remember warning him to never break her heart. Christos seemed somewhat fearful of me, as I was a victor of the Hunger Games, but Aaricia knew I was only kidding.

Donnel was two years older than me, but he’d survived. Donnel and I used to wrestle a lot when we were younger and in school, he was the only one who could beat me in wrestling matches. I remember once, when I was fourteen and he was sixteen, we were practicing for a wrestling match outside and rolled down a hill, smashing into a tree. We didn’t want our mother to know, so we went to Mrs. Everdeen, who was a known healer. Katniss had come home from hunting when Donnel was being stitched up - he’d forced me to go first, and she was amused by the story that Donnel and I had shared of our wrestling. He could be a right foul dick sometimes, but he was my brother and I’d loved him just the same.

As Katniss pulled off my shirt and continued to kiss me, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, and I just couldn’t stop them. I held onto her tightly as the tears poured from my eyes and I sobbed into her shoulder. “Shhh... Peeta, my darling, it’s all right...” she said, attempting to soothe me, but it wasn’t working. She sat there and held me as I cried, rubbing my back and comforting me. I knew that she knew how I felt, having once believed she lost her entire family, and I just let her comfort me until my sobs turned into the occasional hiccup. “You were such a wonderful son and brother to all of them,” I heard Katniss whisper to me. “They’d be so proud of the man you are today.”


	14. Chapter XIII: The Ballad of Lucy Gray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch speaks to Katniss and Peeta privately. Maude Ivory summons Katniss for another talk. Peeta and Katniss argue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major Songbirds and Snakes spoilers!
> 
> ‘Lucy Gray’ — Emmett Franz

A couple of days had passed after the weapons demonstration. Katniss had left me for a few minutes to bring dinner to our room for both of us and we ate in bed, the blanket over our laps and us sitting shoulder to shoulder. We didn’t make love that night, but that didn’t stop us from making love the following morning.

On this particular day, though, Haymitch had sent word that he wanted to see us. Katniss was working in the lab with her brother when I got word and was told to bring her, so I went to the lab and found Katniss looking at some strange creature underneath a giant magnifying glass. “Uh... Katniss?” I said, looking at her from the other side of the magnifying glass. The glass moved up and looked at me with one giant grey eye, and I couldn’t help but laugh, especially when a giant toothy grin replaced it. The magnifying glass moved and Katniss stood behind it in normal proportion.

“What brings you here, _mo ghaol_?” she asked me.

“Apparently, Haymitch wants to see us,” I told her.

“Oh boy, are we going to get yelled at?” she asked me, and I shrugged.

“Don’t know, but better to get it over with now rather than later,” I replied, and she let out a sigh.

“Right. Cailean, watch the skin, mark down if it does anything,” she said, pulling off the white lab coat she was wearing and draping it over a coat hanger by the door. Together, we left the lab and headed for Haymitch’s room, which was where he wanted us to meet him. “I don’t know if I’m really in the mood for a lecture.”

“Me either, but I think he’s still annoyed at us for the meeting a few days ago.”

“It’s not like we weren’t doing anything bad. I spend a lot of time in the hospital. After that medical ship, everyone there knows how much time I spend in there. I can’t help being hungry, it’s human nature.”

“I don’t think he’s mad about that. You did call him ‘mum’. What’s a ‘mum’ anyway?”

“It’s just what we call our mothers in Hebridia, if we aren’t calling them the Gàidhlig word for it, which is _màthair_.”

“Like Mom?”

“I guess so, if that’s the Panem way of saying it.” We arrived at Haymitch’s room and stopped just outside of it. “You ready?”

“Gonna have to be sometime,” I replied, giving her a quick kiss before knocking on the door. The door opened and Haymitch stood on the side of it.

“Well, look who’s showed up on time for once,” he said to both of us, inviting us into his room, and we entered without a word.

“You wanted to speak to us, Haymitch?” I asked him, and he motioned for us to sit in two chairs he’d set up for us, and we did.

“If this is about the meeting-” Katniss began, but Haymitch cut her off.

“This is about the apparent lack of interest that you two have in the cause. Or mostly, you, Katniss,” he said. We knew he was annoyed at us when he referred to us by name. “I understand that neither of you wanted this. Believe me, I get it. But it’s here, and you two both agreed to take an active part in it when you agreed to represent District Twelve as senators, so you need to at least act like you want to be there.”

“We do want to be there, Haymitch,” I said, and he held up a hand to stop me.

“Peeta, it don’t look like it,” he replied. He took one big long look at us and then sighed. “Sometimes I forget you two are still kids... All of you. You, Odair, Johanna, the twins... Carolina, too. The Games made all of y’all grow up so fast, they took what was left of your innocence away. I know that, it happened to me.” He paused for a moment. “I know we all want this war to end as quickly as possible, but the Capitol ain’t gonna give us that. Snow ain’t gonna give us that. We have to take it from him, and we have to work together to get that.” He looked back up at us. “I want you two to get the happy ending you deserve. I’ve always looked at you two as my kids, almost. At the time, I didn’t have Carolina. When you two won the Games, I realised I could look at you both as my kids. It gave me a new purpose, to keep you two alive. I didn’t have a mentor like you two did.”

“You’ve been the closest thing I’ve had to a father since my uncle died in the mines,” Katniss said to him. “We don’t mean to be immature... I guess it’s just hard to get a grasp on the fact that things have changed so much in the last four years.”

“Even more than that. You lost your whole family when you were eight years old,” I told her.

“Don’t let anyone tell ya not to enjoy life. If the Games taught me anything, it’s that life’s too short to be adults all the time, especially when your childhood was ripped away from you. You said it yourself, kiddo,” said Haymitch, addressing Katniss. “‘The revolution is in the hands of the young, and the young will always inherit the revolution’. What a great quote.” She smiled, then stood up to pull him into a tight, familial hug, and I joined in as well, embracing both of them tightly. “By the way, how’d the advice go?”

“What advice?” asked Katniss, forgetting that we had both gone to Haymitch for advice on sex.

“I think he means sex,” I said to Katniss, who blushed gently and I looked at Haymitch. “Wonderful, actually.”

“Gosh, don’t talk about it!” Katniss exclaimed, and both Haymitch and I laughed as she flushed with embarrassment.

“We could actually use more of those condoms,” I said to Haymitch, and Katniss blushed and looked away from us both.

“I got you covered, son,” said Haymitch as Katniss was furiously blushing. He handed me a pack, and then sent us on our way. “Before you go, don’t forget to put your hearts into the rebellion more. None of us wanna be here, but we are. Just don’t forget that.” As soon as we were out in the hall and the door to Haymitch’s room closed behind us, Katniss smacked my chest.

“What was that for?” I asked her playfully, poking her in the side.

“That’s so embarrassing! Telling him about what we do!” she cried, and I laughed.

“It’s not that bad! We both went to him for advice, what were you expecting? For him to forget that?” I asked her, and she sighed.

“Peeta, I don’t want to talk about anything that we do with anyone but you,” she told me.

“Ah, so that’s why Carolina knows I have a nice ass.”

“And where did you hear that?”

“Calum. They’ve been talking a lot, them both being senators, and evidently, she told him that you went to her after we had sex for the first time and were ‘ranting and raving’ to her about it.”

“Remind me to slap him later.” I couldn’t help but laugh, and I pulled her into a hug.

“Don’t worry, I like being shown off,” I told her, catching her under her chin with my finger and kissing her. “I’ve got to run back to the project I’ve been working on with Calum. I’ll see you at dinner, all right?”

“If you’re not there, I’ll shove my foot up your ass,” she replied.

“Yes, ma’am,” I then said, kissing her again, and we went our separate ways.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

Shaking my head with amusement as I left Peeta, I started heading back towards the lab, but something caught my attention. Out of the side of my eye, I saw a flash of pink, and when I looked, nothing was there. I shook it off and continued walking, but was then caught by a rather large “PSST”. I stopped in my tracks and turned around, and standing there in the doorframe of a dark room was old Maude Ivory, beckoning me to come towards her. I followed her quickly, closing the door behind me as she pulled me into the room and sat me down on a stool, and she sat down on the stool in front of me.

“You’re like a ghost, aren’t you?” I asked the old woman, who smiled.

“We’re old friends, the ghosts and me,” she replied. “Where did I leave off?”

“You told me the names of the members of the Covey and then told me about the 10th Hunger Games and how Lucy Gray survived them,” I replied.

“Ah, yes. Did I tell you how Snow had a friend called Sejanus Plinth?” she asked me, and I shook my head.

“You didn’t mention him.”

“Perhaps not a ‘friend’, but it sure seemed like it. But he had everyone fooled, the old snake. He was lucky he was handsome, and easily charming, but his true colours came out when Lucy Gray brought them out.”

“You said Snow was her mentor, yes?”

“Correct, but he was more than that. At least, he said he wanted to be more than that. They were lovers, briefly.” That took me by surprise. Lovers? Snow had a lover? It was known that he had a wife, but they almost never appeared in public together and when they did, they did not hide their disdain for each other. “Snow saw love as a weakness, he did. It led him to nearly take part in a rebellious act, all because he claimed to love poor Lucy Gray.”

“What happened to her?”

“She loved him back, which was her mistake. She didn’t know his true intentions until the snake bit her. I suppose she always had a way with snakes, but this one didn’t want to be charmed. To us in District Twelve, she only disappeared, thought to be forgotten, but the Covey? We knew... We knew the wretched snake had killed her, somehow.”

“Because he thought love was a weakness?”

“Perhaps. It made him think about the actions of the Capitol, and he didn’t like that. Love for Lucy Gray brought out the man that Snow should have been, but the man he wanted to be killed him dead.” I nodded as I listened.

“Who was Sejanus Plinth?”

“A sweet boy. A district boy, I believe from District Two. He hated the Games and how the Capitol was punishing the districts. He lived in the Capitol, but he was a district boy. I was just a child when I knew him. He was a good man. He believed Snow was his closest friend. Perhaps Snow _was_ his closest friend. He was so naive, that Sejanus Plinth... He was even going to help some rebels rescue a woman being kept prisoner in the Peacekeepers’ hive, but somehow, his actions were found out, and he was hanged for siding with the rebels. On the tree that inspired the song that Lucy Gray wrote.”

“A song? What song?” Maude Ivory smiled at me, and she started to tap her feet in rhythm to the song she was about to sing.

_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree?_

_Where they strung up a man they say_ _murdered three._

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in_ _the hanging tree..._

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree?_

_Where the dead man called out for his_ _love to flee._

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in_ _the hanging tree..._

I knew the song. I’d grown up with it. My uncle sang it, Agnessa sang it, the people of District Twelve hummed it and it was just a District Twelve folk song, or so I had thought. I joined Maude Ivory on the next verse.

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree?_

_Where I told you to run so_ _we’d both be free._

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in_ _the hanging tree..._

Maude Ivory let me sing the ballast verse by myself, smiling as I continued the last verse of Lucy Gray’s haunting song.

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree?_

_Wear a necklace of rope_ _side by side with me._

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in_ _the hanging tree..._

I never dropped my eyes from Maude Ivory’s, her old eyes smiling like they were young and childlike. “You sound just like her. Like Lucy Gray,” she said.

“I suppose I’m honoured,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.

“You ought to be, she was very talented. It was a shame that Snow killed her. And now you will kill him.”

“Whoa, hold on, now. I’m not looking to _kill_ Snow. I want him out of power.”

“Would you say that if Snow had gotten his hands on your husband?” I froze, my thoughts shifting to how I would feel if Snow really had gotten Peeta. If he had, I would have demanded an end to the rebellion before it even began. I would have been out for Snow’s blood personally. Perhaps Snow had been right to declare that love is a weakness - it makes one emotional, and when one is emotional, they tend to rethink their decisions. I shook the thought from my mind.

“Unlike Snow, love isn’t my weakness, it is my greatest strength. My ability to love has given me powerful allies, and it has kept my head above water, in more ways than one.”

“But love can also be used as a weapon. Love can be used against you. That’s how Snow saw it when he killed Lucy Gray. She loved him, and he loved her, and she knew that he loved her, and therefore he knew that she could have power over him, and there is no one more powerful than Coriolanus Snow.” She smiled at me. “The hour is up. I have told you everything you need to know. Use it wisely, and remember Lucy Gray.” The old woman got up and left, leaving me to sit there wondering what on Earth to do next.

I checked my watch - two hours until dinner. I wanted to see Peeta - _needed_ him - but truth to be told, I had no idea where he was. I had to shut those awful thoughts out of my head. Using my love for Peeta as a weapon against me? I was horrified. What if Snow did manage to capture him? What if he used tracker jacker venom to make Peeta fear me? We had the antivenom, yes, but it wasn’t infallible. What if it failed? What if I couldn’t bring Peeta back to me? I had to protect him and keep him safe. I couldn’t let him be at risk for danger. If there was any chance that Snow could grab him and take him away from me, then I wasn’t going to let Peeta come. He was safe in District Fourteen, where we remained virtually undetectable. District Fourteen is where he will remain for the remainder of the rebellion.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

I was finally finished working with Calum shortly after dinner started, and as I made my way there, I hoped Katniss wouldn’t be too upset with me for being late. When I arrived, I saw her seated at our usual table with her back to me and I became excited at the very sight of her. I quickly walked over to her and placed my hands on her shoulders, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Her fork flew from her hand and spilled rice all over the table and she stared up at me with momentary fear in her eyes, which vanished the moment she recognised me. “Peeta!” she cried, jumping up and throwing her arms around me.

“Uh, hey?” I said, rather confused. She looked as if she hadn’t seen me in days, but it had only been a few hours. “Katniss, it’s okay... What happened?” She pulled back from the embrace and looked at me.

“Nothing,” she said, her hand moving to my cheek and her thumb gently stroking it. “Just missed you, that’s all.”

“All right...” I said suspiciously, sitting her down and then I sitting down beside her. “What’s for dinner today?”

“Rice and lamb with a side of mashed yams,” she replied.

“Sounds good, think I’ll get me some,” I said, standing up, but then her hand shot up and grabbed my wrist. When I looked down at her, she looked afraid, but only for a moment, then let go of my wrist and looked back at her food. “Katniss, what the hell happened? You’re jumpier than a cricket.”

“Oh, don’t mention those god-awful spawns of bloody Satan,” she said. Katniss Everdeen/Fòlais/Mellark could face two arenas filled with people trying to kill her with deadly weapons, but the moment a cricket crossed her path, she screamed bloody murder and fled as if her life was in danger.

“Katniss,” I said firmly, and she looked up at me. “What happened?”

“I told you, nothing. Go get your dinner,” she told me. I let out a huff.

“Fine, but I know you’re lying to me, and I don’t like it when you lie to me. You’re a terrible liar,” I replied.

“I’m not lying, nothing really did happen, Peeta,” she told me irritably.

“So why can’t you tell me why you’re on edge?”

“I’m fine! I took a brief nap and had a nightmare, that’s all. Nothing to get your knickers in a bunch for.”

“You’ve had nightmares before and you’ve never been this jumpy.”

“Dinner, now,” she ordered, and I huffed again before going to get my dinner and then sitting down on the other side of the table across from her. She gave me a look as if asking me, ‘Seriously?’

“Look at you, drama queen,” she said.

“You won’t talk to me so I won’t sit with you,” I replied, cutting into my lamb chop.

“Fine, if that’s the way you want to be, then be that way,” she said, throwing her hands up, then she continued to eat her rice. It was times like these where I missed the days when we had separate houses and if she annoyed me, I could just go to my own house, but not now. She was my wife, and I couldn’t just go to another room. Not when my fingerprints only let me into one room.

“Cailean said you never went back to the lab,” I said after a moment of looking at her.

“Why is that relevant?”

“Where were you?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“Because I’m asking you.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“It’s a damn good enough reason for me.”

“Peeta, can I eat in peace please? You’re spitting your sass all over my food and it’s not a good seasoning.”

“I’m not joking around, Katniss.”

“You asked me what happened and I told you nothing, which is the truth. Why do you think I’m lying?”

“Because you’re acting weird.”

“I _always_ act weird! Peeta, have you met me?”

“Weird as in not like the usual weird. You jumped onto me as if I’ve been on my deathbed and have suddenly recovered.”

“I told you I missed you, which is also true.”

“But there’s a ‘but’ in there.”

“I’d rather have yours.”

“ _Katniss._ ”

“ _Peeta._ ” We locked eyes for a moment, mine full of anger and hers full of amusement. I scoffed and shook my head.

“You’re impossible sometimes.”

“Impossible how?”

“Difficult, stubborn, impossible.”

“You said you liked my stubbornness.”

“I do, but not when it bites me in the ass.”

“Who’s biting you in the ass? Only I’m allowed to do that.”

“ _Katniss!_ ” I paused, looking down at my plate. “I’m not hungry anymore.” I stood up and left the table.

“Peeta! Peeta, wait!” She must have run after me, as I heard her voice getting closer.

“Leave me alone, Katniss,” I told her, not even looking at her.

“Peeta, come on, I was just messing around,” she said, and I turned to face her.

“Well, I wasn’t! And now you’ve just pissed me off!” I hissed, and she took a step back.

“All right, sorry I’ve offended you.”

“Don’t turn this around.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Well, we share the same bed so what if I wanted to go to bed, too?”

“Then I’ll go to bed on the floor.”

“Peeta, those are metal floors. They’re so uncomfortable.”

“I don’t want to be around you right now, Katniss. Please stop following me.”

“You know I could never do that.” She stopped me, standing right in front of me. “Peeta, just talk to me.”

“I tried, you shut me out.”

“I did not ‘shut you out’. Nothing happened, Peeta. Nothing at all. I had a nightmare and let my mind get carried away by fear, but it was just a nightmare and everything is fine. You’re right here, standing before me all in one piece, so there’s nothing to worry about.” I stopped and listened to her talk, then when she finished, I waited a moment before heading towards our room again. “Peeta, it’s the truth! Why don’t you believe me?”

“Never said I didn’t. Still don’t want to be around you right now.” I approached the door to our room and opened it, stepping inside, and it closed behind Katniss.

“Isn’t there any way I could make it up to you? Do you want me to take my clothes off and top you or something?”

“Sex doesn’t fix everything, Katniss,” I said sternly as I pulled an extra blanket and my pillow off the bed. I threw them both onto the floor, then kicked off my shoes and climbed underneath the blanket.

“I can’t stand when you’re angry with me.”

“It’s gonna happen sometimes.”

“But not today.” She let out a sigh. I felt her sit down beside me on the floor and lie down. “Maude Ivory spoke to me again today... She told me about Snow and Lucy Gray and how... how Snow views love as his weakness. And then she told me she wants me to kill Snow and I said I don’t want to kill him, but then she said I’d think different if Snow had taken my love for you and turned it into a weapon against me, like brainwashing you with tracker jacker venom into fearing me and hating me. I couldn’t live with that.” I waited a moment before I spoke.

“Why would she tell you that?”

“She didn’t, all she did was ask me if I still wouldn’t kill him if he turned you against me. The rest was just my imagination taking over and scaring me.”

“And would you?” She was silent for a moment.

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” she whispered. “I just want the war to end.” I lay there for a moment contemplating her words. Katniss was an experienced killer, yes, but she didn’t have the heart to be one. She didn’t want to be thought of as a killer. She wanted peace and nothing more, and she wouldn’t kill anyone unless she absolutely had to.

“I’d kill him, if he did that to you. And I’m not saying you should. We’re different people with different beliefs. You should be proud of not wanting to kill anyone, no matter what the circumstances.”

“Many, many others would disagree.” I turned around in my floor bed to face her, and she looked at me. “I’m sorry I upset you, Peeta.”

“And I’m sorry I got angry with you. I just wish you would have told me and we didn’t have to play this back and forth game. I don’t like it when you keep things from me.”

“Well, not everything I do is your business, but that one I’ll let slide because it pertains to the rebellion, and as Haymitch’s paper said, we _are_ the rebellion.”

“You are, you’re the Mockingjay.”

“No, Peeta, _we_ are the Mockingjay. Together, we create the Mockingjay. You’re the Jabberjay and I’m the mockingbird. That’s what we agreed on, remember? We’re a team.”

“And we always will be.” She smiled at me, and then I returned it, and I couldn’t stop myself from pulling her close to me to kiss her.

“What are we doing on the floor still?” she asked me when we broke our kiss.

“That is an excellent question. You’re right, the floor is extremely uncomfortable,” I replied, and we got up, fixed our bed back to the way it was before and climbed in, Katniss snuggling up next to me and I wrapping my arms around her. “I love you, Katniss. I know there’s going to be times that we fight and that we’re going to be angry with each other, but I want you to remember that no matter how angry I seem with you, I will always love you.”

“I love you, too, Peeta, and I suppose I should say the same thing. Arguments happen, it’s a sign of a healthy relationship. Just as long as you promise me that we won’t ever go to bed angry with each other.”

“I promise.” Our lips joined for yet another kiss, and I probably don’t need to go into detail about what happened next. I’m sure it’s easy to guess what.


	15. Chapter XIV: Predator To The Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cailean creates a wave runner to get around the water and Katniss can’t resist testing it. A mission goes wrong, leading to a run-in with the Capitol.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

_The cornucopia was far, quite a good distance to swim, but that was no problem for me. I was born swimming, and that was my advantage, but it was also District Four’s advantage. I managed to get to the cornucopia in time to pick up a silver bow and quiver full of silver arrows and defended myself from the Careers - Bruce, Cashmere, Enobaria, and even a few non-Careers. When I turned to look for Peeta, I stopped, drawing back my arrow and pointing it at Finnick Odair. In his hand was a trident, but it wasn’t pointed at me. “You know how to swim,” he said with what seemed to be mock admiration. “Where’d you learn that in Twelve?”_

_“Not originally from Twelve,” I told him._

_“Ah, that’s right, you’re from Hebridia,” he replied. “Duck!” Confused, I reacted anyway by moving aside and watching Finnick sink his trident into the abdomen of the male District Five tribute, and the cannon sounded. Then he smiled at me when I gave him a rather incredulous expression. “Didn’t expect that, did you? Good thing we’re allies.” He raised his left wrist and on it was the golden bracelet that Effie had given Haymitch. He couldn’t have stolen it, there was no way. Haymitch must have given it to him, which meant that Haymitch wanted me to trust him. “Don’t trust One and Two. You take this side, I’ll go find Peeta. Take what you need.” Peeta. I watched as Finnick ran off, and then I quickly gathered up some weapons. A couple of knives, a machete and a second set of arrows before Finnick caught my attention. “Katniss, he’s over here! Mags found him!” I followed Finnick to where Mags was standing, pointing silently at the platform that Peeta must have come up on._

_“Peeta!” I called. He looked for a moment before continuing to fight with the tribute from Nine that was attacking him. I drew back my arrow and fired at the tribute, sinking an arrow into his chest. He began to float as the cannon went off, and Peeta gripped onto the side of the platform. He couldn’t swim like I could, so Finnick dove in and swam to him, scaring Peeta thinking he didn’t have a chance against Finnick._

_“It’s okay! It’s okay,” I heard Finnick say to him as he panicked. “We’re allies, okay?” He raised his wrist. “Look, there’s Katniss right over there.” He pointed at me, standing on the rocks beside Mags. Peeta nodded, then grabbed onto Finnick, riding him back to the rocks. Finnick helped push him onto the rocks and I took him by the wrist and helped him up, then glanced over my shoulder at the Careers._

_“We should go,” I said, exchanging a glance with Peeta as Finnick climbed out of the water. I shrugged, silently telling him that I had no idea about Finnick being our ally, either, and the four of us ran off into the jungle._

* * *

I wouldn’t call what we were doing a ‘Weapons Demonstration’, but Cailean wanted some of us to see something he’d created for water travel. “We’re on an island, so it’s kind of silly to not have any kind of water transportation,” he said. “There’s boats, of course, and submarines, but they don’t go very fast. These do.” He brought me, Finnick and Carolina to a room, then opened the door to reveal three motorcycle-like vehicles that didn’t have wheels, but instead were flat on the bottom.

“Are those...” I began, already knowing the answer, and he smiled.

“Wave runners,” he said.

“What’s a wave runner?” asked Finnick.

“Do they really not have wave runners in Four?” I asked him, and he shook his head. “We had them in Hebridia, but of course they weren’t nearly this fancy. Can I get on it?”

“Of course!” said Cailean, helping me climb onto it. They were easier to mount in the water. I sat on it and put my hands on the handlebars, looking at all the controls and dials and even the small screen.

“The screen gives depth, it tells you if there’s anything below you, it gives your speed and it also has a Global Positioning System to help you get to your destination,” Cailean explained. “There’s an old factory nearby, Gale wants us to scope it out and see what kind of factory it is so we can either use it for resources or use it for target practice. I was thinking these would be a great way to get there.”

“They’d be perfect!” I exclaimed. Suddenly, Peeta appeared in the doorway, huffing and puffing as he leaned up against it.

“Sorry... Delly... stopped me... wouldn’t stop... asking... for a damn cookie recipe!” he exclaimed, and the group of us shared a chuckle. “What’s that?” he asked, looking at me up on the wave runner.

“It’s a wave runner. Cailean made them,” said Carolina. “These are amazing! I want to go on this mission just so I can ride them!”

“Well... if we _do_ go, I think the only ones driving them should be myself, Calum and Katniss because we all have experience with them and have been riding them since we were toddlers,” Cailean said. “But there’s enough room for one passenger on each.”

“I can’t wait to take this thing out for a spin. I used to love them! Dad used to let me ride them by myself when I was seven years old,” I said, playing with some of the buttons on the screen. I hit a button and it beeped, startling everyone in the room and eliciting a small squeal from Carolina.

“That’s the horn,” said Cailean.

“Were they always this big?” Finnick asked, and Cailean shook his head.

“Ours were much smaller,” he explained. “But I had a couple failures from the motorcycles so that’s why they look like them.”

“Can they go on land?” Peeta asked, and Cailean again shook his head.

“These are strictly watercraft, but I would like to create one that’s amphibious,” he explained. I turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared, startling everyone again. “All right, that’s enough! I don’t really know how these will react out of the water.” He helped me down, then turned the ignition off.

“Have you even tested them yet on water?” I asked him as I stepped away.

“Ah... no...” said Cailean.

“So you want us to use these on a mission to an old factory, but you haven’t even tested them yet?” Carolina asked.

“I was planning to! I just got so excited that I wanted to show them off!” Cailean replied. “I’m sure they’ll be safe.”

“I’ll test them,” I said. “I’ll give anything to get on a wave runner again.”

“Is that such a good idea?” Peeta asked nervously.

“I’ll be with her. I need to be anyway, since I designed them,” Cailean told him. We went to test them maybe an hour or so later. They all floated on the water in the cave in a single file line, and Cailean gave me a checklist of everything to do before he would allow me to drive it. “You have to check the engine, check the gas, check the horn...”

“Check this, check that, got it, moving on. Let’s get on this thing,” I said impatiently, climbing on and turning on the ignition.

“Oi, what’s one thing Dad always said to do before getting on a wave runner?” Cailean asked me.

“Keep an eye out for big waves?” I asked.

“Wear goggles,” Cailean replied, then he pulled out a pair of goggles and slipped them onto my head.

“Are we ready to go now?” I asked.

“Yes, yes we are,” said Cailean, climbing on behind me. “Now, remember. Another thing Dad always said was to start out slowly. You don’t want to press the gas an goooo-AAAAAH!” Before he finished talking, I pressed the gas on the handlebars with my hand and sped off, splashing everyone who was watching as we sped off. In the rear view mirror of the wave runner, I could see everyone who was in the cave with us - Finnick, Carolina and Peeta - run out onto the rocks to watch us speed away. I turned the handlebars of the wave runner, steering it towards the left and going around the island. “Slow down! _Slow down!_ ” Cailean squealed in Gàidhlig, but I only laughed.

“Speed up? Okay!” I replied, and sped up even more. As I went around the island and came into view of the cave again, I headed out towards the mainland, jumping waves and causing Cailean to scream every time. When I hit a big wave, however, the wave runner jumped it and knocked both of us off, landing on its side and floating in the water.

“Now look what you’ve done! We’re in open ocean!” Cailean shouted at me.

“Now you know what the largest wave it can take is,” I told him, pushing the wave runner to stand back up. When it wasn’t moving, it sat about half in the water. “Now you’ll know how it needs to be mounted in the water in case something like this happens.” I pulled myself back up onto the wave runner, helping Cailean climb back on.

“Head back to the cave, you’re insane,” he said, and I laughed. “SLOWLY!” he screamed as I sped back towards the island. As I approached the rocks, Cailean screamed for me to stop and I did as I was told, but not without splashing the three spectators on the rock. I laughed as Peeta, Carolina and Finnick glared at me through their wet hair and drove the wave runner back into the cave. “Right, off you get. I’ll test the other two because you’re batshit crazy.”

“You knew I was always a wild driver,” I told him as I began to climb off, and I felt a wet hand grab mine and help me back onto the platform. I glanced up at whoever grabbed me and met Peeta’s highly amused eyes.

“You’ll pay for soaking me,” he said with a smile.

“Twice,” I told him with a sly smile, and I kissed him. “Mm, salty.”

“Yeah, I wonder why,” said Peeta. We watched as Cailean tested the last two wave runners on his own before we returned inside to change out of our wet clothes. As Peeta stepped out of his wet trousers, I startled him by pushing him down onto the bed and straddling him. “I’m trying to decide if I should punish you for soaking me or not,” he said.

“If you punish me, you’ll be punishing yourself,” I told him, running my hands up his bare chest from his stomach and lying down on his chest. We were both in our undergarments, he in just a pair of boxers and I in my bra and panties.

“True... I guess I would be punishing myself if I said no to having sex,” he replied. His hands remained where they were, above his head and against the bed.

“Mhm, you definitely would.” I went to kiss him, but he turned his head.

“But at the same time, I went most of my life being in love with you and not having sex with you...”

“Peeta!” I groaned, pulling his head to face mine, and when I went to kiss him again, he turned his head the other way.

“Perhaps it would be worth it to punish you with no sex.” I gave up and started kissing his neck. “You know, I think I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Shut up,” I growled, still kissing and sucking on his neck.

“That’s not very nice, you’ll get peed on, and so will our bed, and that won’t be a fun mess to clean up, will it?”

“Kiss me first.”

“No, you’re being punished.”

“This is cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Tell me you’re sorry and I’ll kiss you.”

“Fine, I’m sorry I splashed you, and I’m also sorry for your neck.” I sat up, admiring my handiwork, and his hand went to his neck, his fingers over the bruise that was now forming.

“What did you do?” he asked, sitting up and looking at his reflection in the mirror. “Katniss! I can’t hide that! That’s huge!” I hugged him while still sitting on his lap, kissing his face.

“It’s my message to all girls that Peeta Mellark is all mine,” I told him. I felt his arms wrap around me as he let out a sigh. “Gale said he used to do it to girls in Twelve to ‘mark his territory’.”

“Looks like I’m gonna have ‘mark my territory’, too,” he said to me, and before I could even realise it, he’d flipped me over onto my back on the bed and his face was hovering over mine.

“Thought you needed the toilet,” I said to him.

“There’s more important things than my bladder,” he muttered, and he started kissing my neck under my chin. By the time he was done, I had to hide three bruises on my neck.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

It would be another few days before Finnick, Katniss, Cailean, Calum, Carolina and myself were summoned by Gale and Haymitch to go over the mission that Cailean had wanted the wave runners for. We all sat in the command room, which was mostly empty, and turned towards the whiteboard that Gale and Haymitch were standing in front of.

“Glad you could all be here, Mr. Hawthorne here has a mission for you all,” Haymitch began.

“On another island about thirty miles or so from here, there’s an old abandoned factory. Your mission is to scope it out, tell us what it may have been used for, and if we can use it. If not, we’ll just use it for target practice for some of the weapons we’re developing,” said Gale.

“Wouldn’t that be a waste of time if it just turns out to be nothing?” Katniss asked.

“Not entirely,” Gale replied. “We need to test the radius and the power of some of our stronger and larger weapons.”

“In case you have to firebomb the Capitol,” said Katniss.

“Exactly, I’m glad you understand-”

“How would that make us better than the Capitol?” Katniss interrupted him.

“Because they have no problem doing it to us. They firebombed our home, Katniss! They didn’t care how it made them look or how many people they killed, because they don’t care about the people. War doesn’t discriminate,” Gale replied sternly

“No need to talk to me like I’m an idiot, Gale. I’m aware of what war does. It doesn’t mean I agree with it or even have to agree with it,” she replied. I saw Gale glance down for a moment, probably at the visible bruise on her neck, and then at me, and then back at her.

“Right, enough of the arguments. This is the mission, you head out tomorrow. Gale has selected Calum to lead the mission, if you choose to accept,” Haymitch said, looking at Calum.

“I don’t because I’m not a mission leader. Go with either Katniss or Peeta, Gale knows what kind of a leader Katniss is, and Peeta was an excellent leader for us,” Calum replied.

“If I thought they could lead this mission-”

“They _can_ ,” Cailean interrupted him.

“Wasn’t Katniss incredibly reckless on your wave runners?” Gale asked him.

“She’s experienced. We had them in Hebridia so she knows how to ride them,” Cailean explained, and Gale huffed.

“Fine, Katniss and Peeta can lead the mission,” Gale replied. “Report your findings into your communicuffs. You leave tomorrow at seven.” When the meeting was dismissed, Carolina had to dismiss herself to handle some senator thing and Cailean and Calum went off to work on the little ‘surprise’ that we’d been working on. Finnick went back to Annie, and Katniss and I simply decided to head back up to the beach for some fresh air.

“I thought you and Gale were friends again,” I asked her as we headed towards the cave entrance.

“He’s pissed about the wave runner incident. It really wasn’t that bad, and Cailean wasn’t mad at me,” Katniss replied.

“He takes the war so seriously, doesn’t he?” I asked, and she nodded.

“War is hell, so I guess it makes sense to take it seriously,” Katniss replied, pressing the button to open the door that led out to the cave. I followed her as she walked out of the cave and onto the sand, kicking her shoes off and sitting down in the warm sand. I sat down beside her. “Have you watched any of the footage from this year’s Hunger Games?”

“I couldn’t. They’re so horrible now,” I replied, and she nodded.

“The girl from Four won, but only because she was the only one left. Everyone else died of something else. Most of the tributes aren’t killing each other anymore, but the Capitol is killing them. The girl never went home.”

“I heard the Capitol isn’t sending the victors home anymore. They’re keeping them in the Capitol, probably torturing them.”

“District Two joining the rebellion isn’t starving the Capitol of their supply of Peacekeepers. Peeta, this war can’t go on any longer than it has. We have to do something.”

“I wish we could. I really wish we could, Katniss, but we can’t. We agreed to be a part of the senate and we have to work with them to take the next steps.”

“Then we’ll call another meeting.”

“Only Haymitch can call meetings.”

“Then we’ll tell Haymitch to call the meeting. Who put him in charge of the rebellion?”

“He’s not in charge, we are, he’s just keeping it all together so we stay on track. Most of us are under thirty-five years old.”

“I know.” She looked out at the ocean. “What if we don’t make it out of this, Peeta? What if we fail and things go back to the way they were before but worse?”

“We won’t lose.”

“But what if we do?”

“I’m not even going to humour the idea of that, Katniss. We won’t lose, and we won’t die. You and I will come out of this and we will move to District Four and start a family and live the rest of our lives happy and at peace knowing that children will _never_ be put into the arena again. The nightmares will never stop, but we’ll have each other and we’ll have a peaceful future.” She looked at me, then smiled gently.

“You always know what to say,” she said, and I smiled and wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

“We’ll get through this, Katniss. I promise we will. We’ll talk to Haymitch when we get back from the mission tomorrow.” She nodded, then leaned her head against my shoulder as I kissed the top of her head.

“I love you, Peeta,” she said.

“I love you, too,” I said back, and we sat there holding each other for what felt like forever. We went in for dinner and brought it back out, sitting there holding each other and watching the sunset.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

_Victors’ Village faced the sun at dawn, so if I couldn’t sleep the night before, I sat on top of the fence watching the sun rise over the trees. It was summer, shortly before the day of the reaping, when I knew that my name would be drawn and I would be going back into the arena. I was enjoying the peace, when I heard footsteps behind me. “Hi, Peeta,” I said, recognising them._

_“How’d you know it was me?” he asked._

_“You have a heavy step. I’d know your footsteps anywhere,” I replied. “Come on, join me and watch the sunrise.” His footsteps approached me, and then I saw him climb over the fence and sit down on it beside me. I looked at him and smiled, and he smiled back._

_“What brings you out here?” he asked me._

_“Just wanted to watch the sunrise,” I replied._

_“I’m sorry if you wanted to be alone... I can go,” he said._

_“No, Peeta. Please stay,” I said, placing a hand over his on the fence, and he nodded, then looked out over at the sunrise._

_“I’m going into the arena with you,” he said._

_“Peeta, don’t start. I told you that you’re not going into the arena with me. If your name gets drawn, Haymitch is going to volunteer for you.”_

_“And if Haymitch’s name is drawn, I’m going to volunteer for him.”_

_“Peeta, please. I don’t want you going into the arena again.”_

_“You’re not going in alone.”_

_“I’ll be going in with Haymitch. I won’t be alone.”_

_“I’m going in with you.”_

_“You’re not going in with me!”_

_“And why not?”_

_“Because I’m not losing you!” I froze, realising what I said, and then looked back at the sunrise with my eyes wide. But Peeta wasn’t going to let that slide, and I knew he wasn’t. He placed his hand over mine and slid a little bit closer to me._

_“Katniss.” I didn’t respond. “Katniss, look at me.”_

_“No.”_

_“Katniss.” I couldn’t resist. I looked at him, and he caught my chin with his fingers and pressed his lips to mine to kiss me. I felt myself kissing him back, and it felt fantastic. I felt a flame erupting within me as he kissed me and that flame created the passion that I returned his kiss with. I wanted it to last forever, but he broke it before I could deepen it even more. “I can’t let you die in there,” he whispered to me. I didn’t know what to say. My breathing began to quicken and my body began to shake. I had to run. He knew how I felt. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer now. Part of me still wanted to resist my feelings for him, but I knew that I couldn’t. But I could still run, and so I did. I jumped off of the fence and ran back to my house. I heard Peeta calling after me as I ran, but I ignored him, running up to my room and crying into my pillow. I was going back into the arena, and so was Peeta, and one of us was going to die. I decided then and there that it was going to be me._

* * *

At a quarter to seven in the morning the next day, we were preparing to disembark in our mission. We wore wetsuits that had homing devices in them that could track our whereabouts, and each wetsuit had a floatation device built in that could be activated at the pull of a tag in the belt. I was to be paired with Carolina and would be driving one of the wave runners, and Cailean would be paired with Finnick and Calum would be paired with Peeta. It was thought best that both leaders should not be on the same wave runner, otherwise I would have wanted Peeta with me.

“Since I’ll be driving one of the wave runners, I’ll take charge while we get there, and you can take charge on the island,” I told Peeta.

“We’re both leaders so we’ll both lead on the island. You can still lead on the water though. That’s your territory, not mine,” he replied.

“Got your earpiece?” I asked, and he showed it to me in his ear. “Excellent.” The time came for us to board the wave runners, and everyone was on except for myself and Peeta. “I’ll see you when we get there, yeah?”

“See you there,” he said, and he stole a quick kiss before climbing onto the wave runner with Calum. I climbed onto mine, and Carolina held onto me.

“Just promise me you won’t go too fast,” Carolina begged me.

“I promised the boys I wouldn’t get too far ahead of them,” I said. At seven on the dot, we left the cave, and jetted off towards the island. I loved the feeling of the wind in my hair and couldn’t help myself from pressing down on the gas pedal a little bit harder than I intended, pulling ahead of Cailean and Calum.

“Slow down there, Mockingbird,” I heard Calum’s voice say.

“Learn to catch up, little brother,” I replied. I felt Carolina’s grip tighten on me as I checked the GPS. “We have about a forty minute ride ahead of us, boys. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back.” The ride was very rough. The water was freezing and the waves were pretty big, but we were able to make it to the island in just forty minutes. We anchored the wave runners and waded to the island, walking up as the surf came in.

“That is not a fun thing to ride, I don’t know why you like that,” Peeta said to me, approaching me on the beach.

“What’s the matter? Does your bum hurt?” I asked him playfully, smacking his ass, and he let out a whine.

“Just a little,” he said, rubbing where I’d smacked him.

“The trick is to stand just a little. Basically to squat over the seat,” I told him. As the six of us climbed up the beach, we looked around, not actually seeing a factory.

“Do we have the right coordinates?” Cailean asked me, and I checked my communicuff.

“So it says,” I replied, and then I spoke into my communicuff. “Mockingbird to Warbler. Do you copy?” The communicuff was silent. “Mockingbird to Warbler. Do you copy?”

“Katniss...” I heard Peeta say, and I glanced up at him. “We walked right into a trap. It’s the Capitol!” I looked up and saw the very large Capitol hovercraft that was hovering over the island.

“Get back on the wave runners!” I shouted, and the six of us jumped onto our wave runners and started off back towards base. Unfortunately, the hovercraft was following us and started shooting at us, so the three wave runners had to separate.

“I’m hit!” cried Cailean. “My wave runner’s smoking!”

“There’s an island up ahead, stop there and we’ll regroup!” I said back, and we turned towards an island. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Cailean’s smoking wave runner, but I couldn’t see Peeta or Calum. Two wave runners stopped on the island and we ran into the trees as the hovercraft dropped about fifteen Peacekeepers on the island.

“There’s too many of them!” Finnick exclaimed. 

“We can handle them,” I replied, and I pulled out my bow and activated it, and I glanced up at the hovercraft, watching the Peacekeepers file into the trees. “Actually, I have a better idea... get back to the wave runners.” We did just that, making sure to avoid the Peacekeepers, and getting back to our wave runners in time for the pilot of the hovercraft to notice us. “Carolina, steer!” I exclaimed, standing up on the wave runner in front of her as Carolina steered the wave runner. I drew back my red-tipped arrow and launched it at the hovercraft. The hovercraft blew up the moment the arrow touched the surface of it. As soon as that was done, I turned back to the front of the wave runner and took over steering. “Is everyone all right?” I said into my headpiece.

“Finnick and I are great,” said Cailean, but I couldn’t see him.

“Calum?” I said into my earpiece, but there was no answer. “Calum?”

“He’s probably out of range, he’ll get back,” Cailean said back to me. When we arrived back at the base, everyone demanded to know what happened. I arrived first, and Haymitch was quick to run to his daughter and embrace her tightly.

“What happened?” I asked Haymitch.

“Capitol sympathiser gave us false information,” Haymitch replied. “Where’s the boy?”

“You tell me, you’ve got the tracker,” I replied. About five minutes after I arrived, Cailean and Finnick arrived, and we all waited rather impatiently for any word from Calum and Peeta.

“The trackers on their wetsuits have been disabled,” said Cailean, checking monitors.

“But that could mean...” I said, suddenly panicking. If Peeta’s tracker was disabled, then that could mean that the Capitol had captured him, and Calum, too. It would be another hour before we heard anything, and it was Peeta’s tracker that reappeared on the map about two miles away.

“Sweetheart, we got him!” Haymitch exclaimed, and I erupted into tears at the sight of Peeta’s name appearing again, I was so happy. I watched as the tracker slowly approached the island and I ran to the front entrance, where several medics were waiting. That was enough to terrify me, and when the front door opened, Peeta stumbled through carrying Calum, both of them covered in blood.

“Peeta!” I cried, running to him as the medics took Calum away on a gurney. “What happened? Are you hurt? Oh, Peeta, you terrified me!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said to me, holding me tightly in his arms. “They had a boat, they chased after us in it and shot at us. They hit him, and I had to get us away from them. It was very hard to lose them.”

“I thought they captured you or something!” I cried, and he rubbed my back as he held me.

“They have to be craftier than that,” he said, and I pulled back to look at him smiling down at me. I couldn’t help but smile back, and I took his face in my hands and kissed him.

“I suppose I should go and check on my brother,” I said after a moment, and he nodded. “You should come and get checked out.”

“I’m fine, I’m just gonna head back to the room and shower. All this blood on me isn’t mine,” Peeta replied, and I nodded gently.

“Okay,” I replied, kissing him again. “I’ll see you soon.” I went to the hospital to check on Calum, and he’d been shot a few times, but in the end, he was all right. He was to spend a few days in the hospital in order to be treated and rest, so I just returned back to my room reassured that he would be fine. Peeta was sitting on the edge of our bed and looked up when I walked in, and the first thing I did was pull him into my arms and hold him. “I almost lost you today.”

“You’re not that lucky,” Peeta said, trying to be lighthearted, but I wasn’t having it.

“I don’t ever want to come that close to losing you again, or even close to losing you,” I replied.

“If you think you can even attempt to tell me to stay behind while you go on missions, Katniss, you’re lying to yourself. You’re not going anywhere without me.”

“I can’t keep you safe if you’re in harm's way.”

“I can’t keep you safe, either, if I’m not there with you.” He pulled back to look at me. “Listen, it makes me so happy to hear that you want to keep me safe, but you’re not doing it your way because your way means that I can’t do whatever I can to keep _you_ safe. That’s why I refused to allow Haymitch to go into the arena with you. I had to be there to keep you safe.”

“But then I could have lost you,” I replied. “That’s why I insisted that I had to be the one to die.”

“And that’s why I told you that there wasn’t anyone who needed me.”

“Except for me.”

“Except for you... But forget the arena, we aren’t there anymore. We both got out safely and we both got to live. And we’re both going to stay alive. Anywhere you go, I go, and either we both go or neither of us go. Got that?”

“I’ll never be okay with it. I will never be okay with you being in the line of fire, but I know you’ll never forgive me if I’m injured or killed in battle.”

“Damn right I won’t,” said Peeta defiantly, and I sighed, then smiled gently and laughed to myself.

“Look at us... Four years ago, did you think we’d ever be where we are today? If the Games didn’t happen, if we weren’t reaped, do you think we’d still be together?”

“I think I would have gained the courage to ask you out eventually,” Peeta replied. “Would you have?”

“I may have stopped pretending my feelings for you didn’t exist at some point,” I replied.

“If I’d asked you out, would you have said yes?”

“I think I would... I remember I used to blush whenever you looked at me. Sometimes, I’d find myself fantasising about what it would be like to be with you, be in your arms... kiss you, even. But Peeta, I wouldn’t change everything we’ve gone through for anything. Although I _may_ have confessed my feelings for you earlier.” He smiled at me, and then leaned in for a kiss.

“Haymitch came to visit me while you were visiting Calum... How is he, by the way?”

“Few days in the hospital and he’ll be as good as gold. What did Haymitch say?”

“He’s agreed to schedule another senate meeting.”

“Excellent. Did he say anything else?” Peeta was quiet for a moment, contemplating if he really wanted to finish his thought.

“He said the Capitol knows where we are now...” I could feel the pit of my stomach drop. We were no longer safe in District Fourteen.


	16. Chapter XV: The First Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A decision is made in the senate and war on the Capitol is declared. The senate has a surprise visitor.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

_“The earlier rule change declaring that two tributes of the same district may win has been revoked, and there can only be one victor. May the odds be ever in your favour.” My heart sank. Only moments ago, Katniss had shot an arrow through Cato’s head, sparing him from his horrible fate of being torn apart by mutts that resembled the other dead tributes. I looked at Katniss, who looked just as shocked as I was. We should have known - they weren’t really going to let us both win._

_“They can’t do that,” she whispered, and then she looked at me. “No, they can’t do that!”_

_“But they are,” I told her. I thought that we were getting out, that we’d both go home and we’d be happy for the rest of our lives. I loved her, and judging by her actions towards me in the arena, she loved me, too. She’d kissed me several times and risked her life for me, how could that be anything but love? But now, that wouldn’t happen. One of us would have to die, and we wouldn’t get to be together after all. I pulled a knife out of my pocket, and I saw her reach for her bow, but I simply flipped it over in my hand, offering her the handle. “Go on, do it.” She stared at me, as if she couldn’t understand what I was doing. I was sacrificing myself for her so she could live, how could she not see it? “Katniss, take it.”_

_“No,” she said, throwing down her bow and her quiver of arrows. “I won’t.”_

_“Katniss, one of us has to die,” I said to her._

_“Then it’ll be me,” she replied. Why did she have to be so stubborn?_

_“You have something to live for, I don’t. Please, Katniss... let’s just get this over with, so you can go home and get back to your family,” I begged her. She took the knife, looking down at it in her hands. “Just do it quickly...” She looked up at me, then shook her head and threw the knife as far away from us as she could. “Katniss-”_

_“I’m not killing you.”_

_“I’m not killing you, either. Do you really think that I could? Katniss, I’ve been in love with you since we were eight years old. I can’t! Please don’t make me...” Suddenly, she pulled me into a tight hug, which I returned._

_“If you won’t kill me, and since I won’t kill you...” She reached for a pouch on her belt, then opened it up, dumping the nightlock berries we’d found earlier into the palm of her hand. “...then we’ll go together.” I stared for a moment at her hand, and then looked up at her face. She was serious. She wanted us to both commit suicide. “If they want to take one of us away from the other, then they won’t have a victor this year. It’s either both of us or neither of us.”_

_“Katniss...”_

_“Hold out your hand.” I did as I was told, and she dropped some of the berries into my open palm. I looked at them for a moment, and then back up at her._

_“I can’t let you do this...”_

_“I’m not leaving this arena without you,” she said, and I nodded gently. With her free hand, she caught my chin with her fingers and brought her lips to mine one final time, kissing me with a passion that I wasn’t entirely sure was actually there, but it sure felt like it. I knew then and there that her feelings for me weren’t a lie, that she really did love me, even if she didn’t say it, and perhaps didn’t know it. She broke the kiss first, and then met my eyes. She had tears falling from them, and using my thumb, I wiped them away, then took her braid between my fingers to feel the softness of her beautiful chocolate brown hair one more time. “Together?” she finally said, and I nodded gently._

_“Together,” I replied, and we raised the berries to our mouths._

_I felt the berries touch my lips when we were both startled by a loud booming, “STOP,” and then silence. “May we present the victors of the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark of District Twelve.” Katniss and I both threw the berries to the ground and I felt her throw her arms around my neck as I lifted her up and spun her around excitedly, then I set her back on her feet and buried my face in her hair._

_“We’re going home,” I said to her through tears of joy. “Both of us, we’re going home...”_

* * *

It was the day of the senate meeting. It was a few days after the Capitol attack on us that nearly killed Calum. He was doing better, but we certainly didn’t feel safe. We knew that the Capitol had found us, and it was only a matter of time before they attacked. We had to take action, or else the rebellion would be crippled. I walked down the hall with my head held high knowing I was prepared to agree to any attack on the Capitol. As I walked into the command room, I was faced by a scene that made me realise why Gale hated how lighthearted everyone was about the war.

“Take it back, you snot-faced twat,” I heard Katniss say to Finnick, who only laughed.

“Nah, I don’t really feel like it,” he replied.

“Is that all everyone ever is to you? A twat?” Calum asked Katniss, who laughed.

“Pretty much,” she replied. “That’s what you called him though, that time you saw Finnick in Thirteen, remember?” Both Finnick and Calum laughed.

“Oh, right,” he said, and he turned to the few who were listening. “So we’re getting ready for a mission out to District Three to collect some technology when all of a sudden, Finnick shows up wearing a hospital gown demanding to tag along. When Boggs, bless his soul, said yes, Finnick ripped off the hospital gown, tossed it to the floor and ran off to find some proper clothes. And at the time, I didn’t know anything about the bloke other than he had a reputation of being a prick so I said to Katniss when she asked what the hell was going on, ‘I just saw that twat, Finnick Odair, in his underwear. Should I be flattered or humiliated?” said Calum, and the table erupted into laughter.

“It was pretty damn funny,” said Katniss through laughter, and she saw me out of the corner of her eye. “Peeta!” she said happily, reaching out a hand to me, and I took it and sat down in the empty seat beside her.

“What’s going on? All I heard was ‘I saw Finnick Odair in his underwear’,” I said as I joined the conversation.

“Doesn’t everyone want to see me in my underwear?” Finnick asked.

“I still want to borrow that outfit you wore in the tribute parade at the Quell,” Katniss said.

“I for one would _love_ to see you in that, however, you’re only allowed to wear it in the bedroom,” I told her, and the table laughed again as she turned pink.

“Peeta!” she hissed, playfully shoving me. She stood up and grabbed my chair, which had wheels, and pushed me away from the table towards the door. “You’re banished from the table, go sit in the corner,” she said with a laugh as I scooted my way back.

“You have no banishment powers,” I said as I resumed my spot. Haymitch walked into the room at that moment and observed the room.

“Well, I’m glad the energy is high, because our alert levels are in the yellow,” he said as the room silenced. “Some of you know but most of you don’t so I’ll spill the beans. The Capitol found us. We had a Capitol sympathiser feeding false information to us and feeding the Capitol information about us. He came in on that District Five medical ship that had over seven hundred people on it. It was easy for him to slip in, while we were erupting into chaos.” The room was silent for a moment. “I know... I felt the same way when I found out about that, too. He’s in custody and he’s been dealt with, but that’s no comfort to any of us knowing that the Capitol can attack at any moment.”

“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Lystra Eshwater of Ten. “I believe District Twelve called this meeting?”

“Yes, originally, District Twelve did call this meeting, but it’s turned into more than just that. District Twelve believes that we are moving the rebellion too slowly, and I am in agreement with that, especially since the Capitol found us,” Haymitch replied, and he motioned for us to take the floor. This time, I chose to speak, since Katniss had been the one speaking for us before. I stood up and cleared my throat.

“Katniss and I are both in agreement that the war has gone on for long enough. Every district is now seeing an active rebellion, but no one knows the front lines like myself, Katniss, Gale and Calum. We were all travelling throughout the districts extensively for two years trying to ignite rebellions and unify the districts. It took three years of active rebellion to get all districts in one room, and it’s time to put an end to the waiting. District Twelve proposes a plan for attacking the Capitol,” I said, and a couple of gasps emanated from around the room.

“And what exactly is this plan?” asked Gale.

“Invade the Capitol. Destroy the dam that gives them power, destroy the railroad tracks and the roads that bring supplies into the Capitol. Destroy the Nut that provides a base for Peacekeepers,” I replied.

“The Nut is impossible to destroy. We have been trying in District Two, but it is impenetrable,” said Magnow Rose of Two.

“What all have you tried?” I asked him.

“We’ve bombed it several times, but to no avail,” said Magnow.

“Have you tried flushing them out?” asked Katniss.

“Flushing them out? Whatever do you mean, Ms. Mellark?” asked Magnow, finally calling Katniss by the correct name.

“You could always send in a poison gas,” suggested Prodigy Prelius of One.

“What good is that going to do? They can just fill in whoever dies with more people. You’ve got to destroy the actual base itself,” Carolina chimed in.

“But we can use the actual base itself for our own purposes. It would be unwise to destroy it,” said Lenerok Kifflin of Two.

“Why don’t we suffocate them? Don’t they get their air from a vent in the mountains there?” asked Gale.

“Block the vent, block the entrance, so they’re trapped,” said Katniss. “Isn’t there a train that runs under the Nut?”

“There is,” said Magnow.

“And what do we do after we attack the Nut?” asked Zosia Verity of Eight.

“We have control of the Peacekeepers,” said Lenerok.

“They’d lose the ability to maintain contact with the districts and be forced to be brought to the Capitol to protect Snow,” I chimed in, still standing.

“That is an excellent idea, Twelve,” said Tremor Ureon of Ten.

“But how do we do that? Two says they’ve been bombing the Nut for ages and have yet to make even a scratch,” said Clarabella Dustin of Five.

“Create a landslide,” said Katniss. “Big rocks to block the entrance and the vent, they’d be forced to come out under the train tracks in order to not suffocate and we’d head them off there.”

“And then what?” asked Gladius Firk of Six. “We get the Nut, we cut off contact between Peacekeepers outside of the Capitol. And then what?”

“Destroy means of transportation and power to the Capitol. Cut off their ability to get any resources outside of the Capitol,” I said.

“And whose responsibility would that be, Mr. Mellark?” asked Gladius.

“Isn’t District Six transportation? You provided transportation for the rebellion as well as the Capitol. Destroy transportation lines leading to the Capitol. Trap them in there, no one gets in or out,” I replied.

“So we destroy the tracks and roads, we destroy the Nut, and we destroy the dam that provides electricity to the Capitol, as well as the districts, mind you,” said Clarabella.

“Not to Fourteen,” said Carolina. “We have our own source of electricity using the currents of the ocean. Finnick’s idea.” She gestured towards Finnick.

“We could probably find a way to utilise Four’s access to the ocean to provide power to the districts,” Finnick chimed in.

“But hopefully, the siege of the Capitol won’t take long enough to require that,” said Chase Winters of Four.

“I like that. The Siege of the Capitol,” said Karis Paylor.

“When I was researching rebellions, there were names of all the battles that took place and they were remembered through memorials where they took place,” Katniss chimed in.

“Perhaps we can consider memorials once the rebellion is won,” said Cytherea Lewes of Eleven.

“So dam, Nut, transportation. Then we take the Capitol? Why don’t we just skip all the extra stuff and attack the Capitol?” asked Johanna.

“The Capitol is still very strong. We have to starve them first,” said Gale rather calmly. I was surprised, considering he always spoke to Katniss like she was stupid. “I’ve been doing research, too.” He looked at Katniss. “The American Civil War was a war between the United States and the Confederate States. The Confederate States basically broke away to maintain slavery, which the United States wanted to abolish. The United States cut off all supplies to the Confederate States by implementing a blockade. No one got in, no one got out. They were starving by the time the war came to an end and it was an easy victory for the United States. So we have to starve the Capitol and weaken it before we can attack it.”

“But can we do that before they get us here?” asked Pascasia Mezarinne of Nine.

“Frankly, I don’t believe that you can,” came a booming voice, and we all jumped and turned towards a screen as we saw the terrifyingly white, snake-like face of President Snow grinning menacingly at us.

“President Snow,” said Katniss, standing up.

“How’d you get through?” demanded Magnow, and Snow only chuckled with amusement.

“I have my own hackers, too, you know. Your little propos invading my airspace proved that there was a door, and a door can be entered from both sides,” said the man. “Your little senate was such an excellent idea. The districts uniting under one flag, making decisions together like a team. But it won’t be enough to defeat the Capitol. When your little experiment fails, which it will, the Hunger Games will return with a vengeance, and you’ll regret ever rebelling.”

“It failed the first time, but it won’t fail again,” Katniss warned him, stepping towards him, but I stopped her by grabbing her wrist.

“Ah, look at this. The Mockingjay and her little pet. Star-crossed lovers, were you? Still keeping up the charade, I see?” Snow said back to her.

“It was never truly a charade, not fully,” said Katniss. “Tell me, Snow, have I convinced you of my love for Peeta yet?” He smiled menacingly, and chuckled again with amusement.

“I’ve known the truth of your little charade for quite a while, Miss Everdeen. I think you’ll find that love is a weakness. Be careful how you use it. I believe your former mentor can tell you the damage that love can do to you,” said Snow, and Katniss and I both looked at Haymitch, who remained motionless. We then looked back at the screen.

“Did you learn that from Lucy Gray?” asked Katniss suddenly, and Snow froze for a moment, the mere mention of her name bringing a certain fear to his eyes. But only for a moment, before fading again, and then his momentary look of fear was replaced by amusement.

“As I said, love is a weakness,” he replied.

“That’s why you killed her, wasn’t it? The songbird sang a tune that you didn’t like, so you shot it out of a tree. Along with Sejanus Plinth,” said Katniss, stepping towards the screen. She was now standing before the screen, in front of everyone. “I was told the story of Lucy Gray by an old friend of yours, Maude Ivory. She told me how she once admired you and your nearest and dearest friend, Sejanus Plinth. A district boy, brought up in the Capitol. She said he was hanged for treason, when the only other soul he told that was outside of his rebellious plan was you. It was obvious that it was you who sent him to the Hanging Tree. Is there anyone left that you love? That you would die to protect?”

“I told you, Miss Everdeen, that love is a weakness,” Snow repeated.

“So you wouldn’t care if your granddaughter was killed by a rebel gun,” Katniss said to him. “Love is a strength, Snow, not a weakness. My love for Peeta kept both him and myself alive, and the love that everyone in this room holds for their home has kept the embers of the rebellion burning.” While she had been speaking, I stood up and walked over to her, standing by her side and taking her hand.

“Love created the Mockingjay,” I said. “Your life has been wasted because you refused to let love into your heart and it’s made a monster out of you.”

“Maude Ivory said you once had a heart of gold... You could have done great things, had you let love into your heart,” Katniss said to Snow. “We know you know where we are, Snow. And we know that you have the ability to bomb us whenever you please, but know that no matter how many times you try to shut us down, we will always rebuild. Strike us down, and we will build a new home from the rubble.”

“The rebellion isn’t won yet,” Snow reminded us. “Be careful what you wish for.” Suddenly, we felt the room shake, which meant only one thing: the Capitol was bombing District Fourteen. Carolina jumped up, grabbing Weaver Redstone by the wrist.

“We’ve got to get everyone to the bunker!” she shouted, and she and Weaver disappeared from the command room.

“We’ll have you know, President Snow, that this entire conversation has been broadcast across all of Panem,” said Beetee Latier, who must have hacked into a camera in the room and was broadcasting the conversation. Snow only smiled.

“Good,” he said. “Let all of Panem watch you drown.”

“And let them hear the story of Lucy Gray, the one you tried so hard to suppress. The story of the girl who you helped win the 10th Annual Hunger Games by cheating, the songbird who captured the heart of a snake and charmed it not to bite her,” Katniss told him. And then she started singing a song.

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where they strung up a man they say murdered three?_

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree..._

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where the dead man called out for his love to flee?_

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree..._

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where I told you to run so we’d both be free?_

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree..._

After the third verse, Snow must have gotten frustrated with the song, demanding that Katniss stop singing it. “Does it bring up harsh memories? Of the hanging of a coal miner who blew up the mine to kill some Peacekeepers? Of the cry of the Jabberjay as it mocked his dying words calling out to his lost lover? Does it remind you of the death of your friend, Sejanus Plinth, who trusted you and was blind to your true intentions? Does it remind you of the death of a woman you claimed to love, who made you into a man that you didn’t want to be?” Katniss demanded of him, and she finished the song as the command room continued to shake from the bombing raid.

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree_

_Wear a necklace of rope side by side with me?_

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree..._

Snow must have turned off his broadcast to us, but the bombing didn’t stop. The room shook more and more as Capitol hovercrafts released bombs over where they believed we were. Katniss turned to the remaining senators in the room.

“Let it be that on this day, Thursday, the twenty-eighth of July in the year 2163, that the District Senate has decided to go through with the Siege of the Capitol. The days of the rebellion are numbered,” she said, and she looked into the camera that Beetee had set up. “And so are yours, Snow.”

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

We remained in the command room for the duration of the bombing, drafting an official declaration of war on the Capitol. It was decided that leaflets would’ve dropped over the Capitol to warn the citizens to flee while they could, before the neck of the Capitol was strangled. Once Carolina and Weaver returned, the declaration was signed by all twenty-eight members of the District Senate, and was also signed by Haymitch. A Declaration of Independence was also drafted, signed again by all members of the District Senate and a copy of it would be sent to the Capitol. On the Panem Declaration of Independence, I signed my name where District Twelve’s section was, and I passed it to Peeta. “We’re officially making history,” I said to him.

“What a time to be alive,” he said as he passed the Declaration to District Thirteen. When it was all signed, Haymitch sat us all down, ignoring the dust as it fell from the ceiling with every bomb that exploded on the seafloor, and read out the Declaration, Beetee’s camera trained on him as he read the declaration to the nation.

“To President Snow, the Districts of Panem declare their independence from your tyrannical and inhumane leadership. We have decided that enough is enough, and we are no longer asking for our freedom. Either you will grant us our freedom, or you will go down with the Panem that you created, and a new Panem will rise from the ashes. If you do not accept our declaration of our independence, then we will have no choice but to declare war on the Capitol. The people of Panem will be free, and the people of Panem will not take no for an answer,” said Haymitch, and he continued on.

“Signed, the District Senate, made up of Aristotle Archer and Prodigy Prelius of District One, Magnow Rose and Lenerok Kifflin of District Two, Beetee Latier and Dravius Pillock of District Three, Finnick Odair and Chase Winters of District Four, Odeon Avisdee and Clarabella Dustin of District Five, Ellorah Harpernet and Gladius Firk of District Six, Johanna Mason and Jonny Woodstock of District Seven, Karis Paylor and Zosia Verity of District Eight, Pascasia Mezarinne and Tremor Ureon of District Nine, Lystra Eshwater and Rufus Ripley of District Ten, Cytherea Lewes and Kypp Jecker of District Eleven, Katniss Fòlais-Mellark and Peeta Mellark of District Twelve, Gale Hawthorne and Calum Fòlais of District Thirteen, Carolina Abernathy and Weaver Redstone of District Fourteen...” He paused, but only for a moment. “...and Haymitch Abernathy, Advisor to the District Senate.”

Beetee ended the broadcast by setting up pictures of each member of the District Senate including their name, their district number and the year they won the Hunger Games, if applicable, to appear on the screens across Panem.

“Now,” said Haymitch. “Get down to the bunker before the walls crack and we all drown.”

“The big metal doors to the bunker are likely closed by now. We won’t be able to get in. We’ll have to wait the bombing out, we’re safe in here,” Carolina said.

“I guess that’s all we can do,” said Peeta. He wanted to sound confident, but I could hear the tone of worry in his voice. We waited out the bombing for another hour until we didn’t hear the bombs any longer, and the emergency repair crew started getting to work. There really wasn’t much damage to Fourteen, considering the Capitol had no idea where the base actually was. The main part of the base was easily a good hundred feet away from the island, which was likely what they were aiming for. Before Carolina would let the emergency repair crew get to work, she made sure there were no more Capitol bombers in Fourteen’s air space. As the members of the senate dispersed once the all-clear was given, I turned to Haymitch.

“What about Capitol runaways?” I asked him. “Don’t they deserve a voice in this, too?”

“Most of the Capitol runaways have declared Thirteen or Fourteen citizenship. It would be hard to give a voice to an area we want to destroy,” Haymitch replied.

While we had been waiting out the bombing, we planned our next moves. The Nut would be attacked at the same time as the railways and roads that led to the Capitol, which would happen in another week or so, and the dam would follow suit after that. We were planning the Siege of the Capitol in about three weeks’ time. All of this was carefully planned, and each senator would communicate with the commanders in each of their districts to carry it out.

“I want to be there for the attack on the Nut,” I said.

“You’re a senator, sweetheart, not a soldier,” said Haymitch.

“It was my idea, I should be there to execute it,” I said to him.

“You ain’t got time. You’ve gotta train for the Siege of the Capitol,” Haymitch told me.

“You want me to participate in the Siege?” I asked him.

“You’re one of the best leaders the rebellion has. You’re no soldier, but you are a commander. We wanna put together a special team, with Peeta as your second in command, then Gale, both Fòlais boys, Donnel Mellark, Zeodary Sage, Finnick Odair, Hadley Walker and Graham Leper. Also giving you Cressida Dubrow and Castor and Pollux Chatham. They’ll be your camera crew that films you tearing down the Capitol,” he told me.

“You really want to film that?” I asked him.

“You said it yourself, sweetheart. We’re making history here. The people of Panem want to see the Capitol, which has been killing its children for nearly eighty years, get torn down by the Mockingjay.” He took a sip from a flask that he must have been hiding in his pocket, and then we were joined by Carolina, who entered the room.

“The walls have been secured, District Fourteen is back up and running,” she said. “Also, I’ll be joining Katniss in the Capitol.”

“No the hell you are _not_ ,” Haymitch said to her with a lot of his traditional sass. “If you think for a moment that I will consent to you being sent into that bloodbath-”

“You’re only an advisor, Dad. You don’t make the decisions, the Senate does, and the District Fourteen senator has decided that she’s going,” Carolina told him firmly.

“I can’t talk about this right now,” Haymitch snapped. “Not doing this. Nope! Not at all!” He turned and left the command room, his voice echoing off of the walls of the corridors. I turned to look at Carolina, who watched her father stomp off.

“You know, he’s only trying to look out for you,” I told her. “You’re the only one he’s got.”

“He has you and Peeta, too, not just me,” Carolina replied quietly.

“But you’re his only blood. He’s our mentor, you’re his daughter. You take priority over us,” I told her. “Have you ever seen footage from his Games?”

“No... He never told me what happened in them, either.”

“He did something that the Capitol didn’t like... There was a canyon at the very edge of the arena during his Games, and if you threw something down into it, it would fly right back up. It wasn’t supposed to be used as a weapon, just to prevent tributes from committing suicide. Well, he used it as a weapon, and made the Gamemakers look foolish, so they punished him by killing his parents, his sisters, and his girlfriend and her family. He was seventeen, at the time... This was the reason he sent your mother to Thirteen, so you’d both be safe from the Capitol, otherwise you’d have been born in Twelve and probably would have gone into the arena. The Capitol liked when Victors’ children went into the Games, and Snow would have loved another opportunity to hurt Haymitch.” Carolina looked at me and nodded gently, then glanced down at the ground.

“I know he’s worried about me... When we were searching for a place to build Fourteen, we encountered a lot of Capitol attacks, including in an underwater submarine. I thought we were going to die... he told me he loved me and that he was sorry that he couldn’t protect me from the Capitol forever. But that’s it, isn’t it? He can’t protect me from the Capitol forever. No matter what happens, I’m an enemy of the Capitol. My name is on that declaration, same as his. If we lose the rebellion, I’m as dead as he is, as all of us are.”

“It’s every parent’s dream to protect their child... it’s why I never wanted to have children, so long as the Capitol was in power.” I let out a sigh. “He’s proud of you and everything that you do. That much is obvious. And even though he never got to know you as a little girl, to him, you are one. The Capitol took your childhood away from him and he’s trying to find ways to get it back without treating you like a child. He knows you’re an adult, but remember that you were lost to him for sixteen years.”

“I know... Your dad was a nice man. He was very kind, and selfless, and so smart. He always said that he knew you were alive out there somewhere, ‘too stubborn to die’ were his exact words... He died creating the Pox vaccine against the disease that killed so many of us, and made some of us infertile. Calum had it, too, as he was your dad’s first vaccination.” I smiled gently hearing someone mention my father to me. I missed him dearly. He never got to see any of his children grow up to be the people that they are today. Most of them died as children, and only three of us made it to adulthood.

“Fathers are something, aren’t they?” Carolina smiled and nodded. “Haymitch will come around, he always does... Like with me, he knows he can’t stop your spirit.” We chatted for a few more moments before Carolina had to take care of more documentation regarding the damage to Fourteen as well as the flooding, and I simply sat in the command room enjoying the silence.

In this very room, history was created. The Panem Declaration of Independence was signed on this very table by twenty-eight District senators and one senate advisor. I thought back to each individual member of the senate, and tried to recall their history from school.

Aristotle Archer was fifteen years old when he won the 63rd Hunger Games in 2151, making him twenty-seven years old.

Prodigy Prelius was sixteen when she won the 57th Hunger Games in 2142, making her thirty-seven years old. She’d lost her daughter to the 70th Hunger Games in 2155.

Magnow Rose was sixteen when he won the 53rd Hunger Games in 2138, making him forty-one years old.

Lenerok Kifflin was seventeen when he won the 48th Hunger Games in 2133, making him forty-seven years old.

Beetee Latier was sixteen when he won the 40th Hunger Games in 2125, making him fifty-four years old.

Dravius Pillock was sixteen when he won the 41st Hunger Games in 2126, making him fifty-three years old.

Finnick was the youngest Victor to ever win the Hunger Games, having been fourteen when he won the 64th Hunger Games in 2149. He was now twenty-eight years old.

Chase Winters had been eighteen when he won the 59th Hunger Games in 2144, making him thirty-seven years old.

Odeon Avisdee was fifteen when he won the 55th Hunger Games in 2140, making him thirty-eight years old.

Clarabella Dustin was sixteen when she won the 68th Hunger Games in 2153, making her twenty-six years old.

Ellorah Harpernet was seventeen when she won the 47th Hunger Games in 2132, making her forty-eight years old.

Gladius Firk was not a victor and was somewhere in his early thirties.

Johanna had been sixteen when she won the 71st Hunger Games in 2156, making her twenty-four years old.

Jonny Woodstock wasn’t a Victor of the Hunger Games, but he was young, too, probably somewhere in his mid to late 20s.

Karis Paylor was much younger than she looked. She easily looked close to forty years old, but she was actually somewhere in her early thirties.

Zosia Verity had been seventeen when she won the 49th Hunger Games in 2134, making her forty-six years old.

Pascasia Mazarinne was the oldest amongst us, having been sixteen when she won the 39th Hunger Games in 2124, making her fifty-five years old.

Tremor Ureon was not a victor and was somewhere in his late forties.

Lystra Eshwater wasn’t a Victor of the Games either, and was somewhere in her late 20s or early 30s.

Rufus Ripley has been eighteen when he won the 44th Hunger Games in 2129, making him fifty-two years old.

Cytherea Lewes had been sixteen when she won the 54th Hunger Games in 2139, making her forty-two years old.

Kypp Jecker wasn’t a Victor of the Games, but was somewhere in his late 30s or early 40s.

Peeta and I were both sixteen years old when we won the 74th Hunger Games in 2159, and we were now both twenty years old.

Calum (and Cailean) had been born the year after me, making them currently nineteen years old.

Gale was two years older than myself, making him twenty-two years old.

Carolina was a year younger than me, making her nineteen years old.

Weaver Redstone was easily somewhere in his early 20s.

And then there was Haymitch, who was sixteen when he won the 50th Hunger Games in 2135, making him forty-four years old.

Reflecting on the age group of each member of the senate, the average age of our age group was about thirty-five, but about half of us were below that age. We were kids, the majority of us, and it was up to us to decide the fate of our future. All but six of us had been thrown into an arena to fight for our lives. I suppose it is always the children who suffer the sins of the past, and must be responsible for changing the future.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing, and I looked up to see Peeta standing in the doorway of the command room. I smiled sadly at him, then looked back at the table before me. “The future’s finally begun,” he said, walking into the room. “Are you ready for it?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I wanted nothing more than the rebellion ending and for the Capitol to fall... and now that’s about to happen, and I’m a bit...” I let out a sigh. “What happens after?” I asked, looking at him, and he shrugged.

“We go home,” he replied. “C’mon, Katniss, it’s been a long day... You need some rest.” I nodded, then stood up and pulled him into my arms for a tight hug, and without saying a word to each other, we left the command room.


	17. Chapter XVI: Fear In The Hands of the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss learns something shocking. The senate decides to attack the Capitol sooner.

_It was spring, the first warm day in quite a while. Peeta had tried his best to try and convince me to join him in the meadow for a picnic and I rejected him again and again, until I finally agreed. “You look nice,” said Agnessa when I came downstairs wearing a pale green floral dress. “Is today your picnic with Peeta?” I nodded. “Remember, no boyfriends.”_

_“You know how I feel about him, and you’re not my mother,” I replied to her in Gàidhlig, a language we spoke amongst ourselves at home._

_“I do know how you feel about him,” she replied with a knowing smile, and I scoffed._

_“You know nothing,” I replied as I heard a knock at the door, and I went to answer it. Everyone thought they knew me - the Capitol, Gale, even Agnessa, apparently. Everyone kept telling me to open my heart to Peeta Mellark, but how could I? The very thought of being with him disgusted me considering it was forced on me. He wasn’t hideous, but I couldn’t picture myself with him. God, he was every bit the opposite of me. Too sensitive, too kind to someone who didn’t deserve it, too... oh my God. I opened the door and was met by Peeta’s charming smile. Oh my God, indeed. He was so handsome, with his handsome blue eyes and his handsome smile and his handsome blonde hair... What was I thinking?_

_“Uh... Katniss? Are you gonna let me in or...” he said, drawing my attention back to reality._

_“Oh! Um...” I looked back at Agnessa, who was watching me with her arms crossed. “I think we’ll just go from here... Bye, Mum, I’ll be back later.”_

_“No boyfriends,” she said back in Gàidhlig._

_“Not my mother!” I replied, also in Gàidhlig, and I pushed Peeta back out and closed the door behind me, then turned and found myself mere inches from his face, and he smiled at me, but I only blushed in response and looked away, then descended the stairs. I heard him chuckle gently as he followed me._

_“You look very beautiful today,” he said, catching up with me.”_

_“Thanks,” I said, trying to suppress a smile. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”_

_“I know how to clean up sometimes,” Peeta replied, and I couldn’t help but laugh._ _“So what was all that about?” he asked me, and I shrugged._

_“Nothing important,” I replied as we made our way to the meadow, which wasn’t far from Victors’ Village at all. When we arrived, we found a comfortable spot and Peeta laid down a blanket, then motioned for me to sit, which I did, and he joined me. He opened the basket that he brought and pulled out a loaf of bread, then began to cut into it._

_“So... How’s your obstetrician training going?” he asked me, and I smiled._

_“Oh, incredible. They’re saying I’m well on my way to being the best obstetrician in Panem,” I replied sarcastically, and he chuckled. “How’s your painting?”_

_“Oh, the same... When I have a nightmare, I paint it and it helps me to cope with them,” he replied._

_“That’s good... What’s your most recent one about?”_

_“Uh... you don’t... want to hear about that...”_

_“But I do, Peeta,” I told him, putting a hand over his. “I’m your friend, of course I want to know.” He nodded gently._

_“Most of my nightmares are, well... they’re about... losing you...” I froze, realising what he was saying, but I couldn’t remove my hand from his. “What are yours about?”_

_“Peeta...” I muttered, and then I looked up at him. “My last one wasn’t about the Games... it was perhaps my oldest nightmare... It was of the ship that I came here on, from Hebridia.”_

_“That doesn’t sound so scary...”_

_“It wasn’t until the pirates attacked.”_

_“Pirates?” I nodded. “You were attacked?”_

_“I lost my entire family.” He looked confused for a moment. “Peeta, can I trust you with something?”_

_“Of course, I won’t tell a soul.” I took his hand in mine and held it, placing my other hand over it and then looking up at him._

_“My mother, the one that you know, isn’t my mother... and Prim isn’t my sister, but she’s my cousin, and my mother is actually my stepmother. My real mother died in the attack on our ship, and so did my aunt, who was Prim’s mother. The man you knew as my father was actually my uncle, and he and Prim are the only blood family I have left. Before, I had four brothers and a sister, who would have been about Prim’s age, had she survived...”_

_“My God, Katniss... I’m so sorry, that sounds so terrible!”_

_“The doctors told me I had survivor’s guilt... Perhaps I did, and perhaps I still do... I should have died with them, or at the very least, died in the arena.” His hand went to my face to cup my cheek._

_“What were their names?” he asked me calmly._

_“My parents were Dòmhnall and Eilidh... My brothers were Dòmhnall, named after my father - he was actually my twin brother - and then there was Cailean and Calum, who were a year younger than me, also twins. They were identical except for the fact that they were a mirror image of each other, and their eyes were so unique. Cailean’s right eye was blue and his left was brown, and he was left-handed, while Calum’s right eye was brown and his left was blue and he was right-handed... Ashilda, who was four years younger than me, with hair as red as the sunset, like our mother... and then the babies, Alasdair and Anndra, who barely had a chance to live,” I replied, and I sniffled slightly and felt Peeta’s thumb brush a tear from my face. “Our last name was Fòlais... I kept my first name, but the Capitol made me take my uncle’s surname of Everdeen.”_

_“I wish there was something I could do to take the pain away,” Peeta whispered to me, and I smiled gently._

_“You already have, simply by being trustworthy... No one knows about that but you,” I replied, and he smiled._

_“Not even Gale?” he asked, and I shook my head._

_“We’d best enjoy this picnic, before the bugs do,” I reminded him, and he chuckled._

_“Oh yeah, the picnic,” he said, and he resumed cutting the bread. I had a newfound trust in him, and I admired him for being as wonderful and as trustworthy as he was. I wondered then, if perhaps maybe I could love him... Learn to love him, if not love him right away. I thought about kissing him, but a part of me still felt that I didn’t want to love him, since that was what the Capitol wanted. I was going to be forced to love him for the rest of my life, to marry him, start a family with him... watch our children die in the arena. Perhaps we didn’t have to have children. I could pretend I was infertile, but then the Capitol would probably have some solution for that, too. Maybe life with Peeta didn’t have to be so bad after all, but I swore that as long as the Games existed, I wouldn’t be having children.  
_

_When we returned after sunset, I kissed his cheek and embraced him. “Thank you,” I whispered to him, and I left him standing on my front steps._

* * *

I hadn’t been feeling all myself since the senate meeting that declared war on the Capitol. I don’t know what it was, but I just felt... off... My stomach seemed to turn at the slightest scent and I felt more tired than usual, something Peeta noticed at breakfast on the morning of the attacks on the roads and the Nut. I had my head in my hand and was uninterested in my breakfast, and when Peeta noticed, he gently rubbed my back. “You okay?” he asked me, and I nodded.

“Just a little nauseous. Probably nerves, big day today for the districts,” I replied, and he nodded gently.

“You’d tell me if you were feeling unwell, right? You’re not going to the Capitol if you’re unwell,” he told me.

“Peeta, I’m fine. Just worried, that’s all... What if we can’t destroy the Nut or the Capitol finds out about the plans to destroy the roads?” I asked him.

“They won’t. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Everything will be fine. Donnel’s out there executing the destruction of the Nut as we speak,” Peeta told me.

“Is he now?” He nodded. “I should be out there.”

“No you shouldn’t. You should be right here, where you’re safe.”

“How can I be the face of the rebellion if I’m locked up in an underwater cage?”

“Easy. You’ll be there for the Capitol. And don’t even think of trying to sneak away. I’ll have an eye on you. You’re not going without me, and I’m not going, which means you’re not.” I huffed and shrugged his hand off of me, continuing to stare at my food.

“I’m not hungry. Think I’ll go to the lab,” I said.

“Excellent idea, I think I’ll join you,” Peeta replied, standing up when I did.

“Peeta, seriously? Stop worrying about me so much. I’m not going to leave the damn base,” I snapped at him.

“You’ve been lying to me quite a lot lately, so how do I know you’re telling me the truth?” I groaned and didn’t answer him, stalking off to the lab with Peeta following behind. While Cailean and I worked on our own medicated salve that the Capitol had when I was in the Games, Peeta sat in the corner of the room with his arms crossed against his chest, seemingly sulking.

“What's his problem?” Cailean muttered to me in Gàidhlig.

“He thinks I’m going to run off to be a part of the destruction of the Nut,” I replied.

“Don’t blame him then,” said Cailean, and I glared at him. “Don’t give me that look, I know you. You’d run off to be there in a heartbeat. You don’t like being caged. You’ll get your moment soon.” I rolled my eyes and continued working on the skin sample that I had tested the salve on.

“What’s the matter?” asked Peeta from the corner. “He won’t let you go either?” I ignored him as I continued working, then wrote down my findings.

“This one’s a success,” I said nonchalantly, and Cailean looked up at me with wide eyes.

“It is?” he asked with an excited smile.

“Yup,” I replied. “Has the hospital sent down this week’s pregnancy tests yet? Those have to sit for some time, and we’ve got the senate meeting in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, they’re over there. Did you want to do them? I feel weird testing women’s pee,” said Cailean, and I rolled my eyes and smiled with amusement.

“Men,” I replied. “Sure, after I use the lav myself,” I replied, getting up and going into the small bathroom in the lab. In the pocket of my lab coat, I had slipped a small sample cup with a lid into my coat pocket. I was a midwife, I knew the early signs of pregnancy, and perhaps mine really were just exhaustion, but it was better to be safe than sorry. I filled my own sample cup and wrote down a fake name on it, slipping it back into my pocket before I went back out into the lab. Peeta and Cailean were chattering about something that I wasn’t paying attention to while I went over to the pregnancy tests that the hospital sent down. There were six, plus my own seventh. We had a solution that we dropped into them and it took about half an hour to develop. If it was positive, it would turn purple. If it was negative, nothing would happen.

I managed to forget about the tests, getting caught up in another vaccine, when it was almost time for the senate meeting. I glanced at the time, realising that the attack on the Nut must have started twenty minutes ago or so. I looked back up at the pregnancy tests and saw Cailean marking down the names of all of the positive tests. “Three positives out of seven,” he said. “Brandy Tunley, Carmine Hopeful and... Maude... Littany?” My stomach dropped the moment I heard those three names.

Maude Littany was the fake name I created for my own urine sample. I sat at the table with my eyes wide and my face drained of blood, and I turned towards Cailean so Peeta couldn’t see my face. “Are... are you... sure?” I asked nervously. That Peeta picked up on, of course. I could see his reflection in a metal container next to me looking up at me curiously.

“Yeah, they’re all purple,” said Cailean, showing them to me.

“Who are they?” asked Peeta, and I quickly swallowed my shock, some of the blood returning to my face.

“Just... just someone who really, really wanted to have a baby but... but couldn’t... Cailean, let me tell Maude Littany. She’s been waiting so long for this,” I replied. “In fact, I’ll bring the records to the hospital myself, I’ll be seeing her soon,” I said, getting up and taking the records from Cailean.

“I didn’t think I saw a Maude Littany in there... but I guess I could be missing it,” Cailean replied, and as I turned, I saw Peeta standing by the door, clearly suspicious about something.

“I’m not going to run off. I’m going to the hospital and then straight to the command room. You should get there yourself, tell them I’ll be there soon,” I told him. He was silent, trying to read my facial expressions as I approached him by the door, but I was unreadable. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. If I’m not, you can come and hunt me down.” I stood on my toes to kiss his cheek, then took off my lab coat, hung it up and left the lab.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

I didn’t like how strange she was acting. She clearly wasn’t herself, and she was hiding something. She showed up at the command room when she said she would, and when she arrived, she sat down beside me and kissed my cheek, seemingly over the argument we had this morning. I must have given her an incredulous look because she said to me, “Peeta, relax. Everything is fine.”

“You’re just being... I don’t know, weird,” I replied.

“Any weirder than I usually am?” she asked me.

“A lot weirder than you usually are,” I told her. She took my arm in her hands and laid her head on my shoulder, then extended her hand to mine and gave it a tight squeeze.

“I told you, I’m just nervous about the attacks today...” she told me. At that moment, Haymitch walked in, and Katniss let go of my arm, but still held onto my hand. Hers was a bit clammy.

“Welcome, everyone,” he said as he walked into the room. “Today has been an incredibly successful day. But I won’t spoil the fun. District Two? The floor is yours.” Magnow and Lenerok both stood with a paper in their hands.

“We are proud to express that the Nut has been taken, and Senator Mellark’s idea to cause a landslide was a successful attempt.” I really liked that they started referring to each of us as ‘Senator’. “Commander Lyme of District Two executed the plan with the help of Soldier Donnel Mellark and the Capitol’s Peacekeepers have retreated into the city,” said Magnow. He then gestured to District Six. “District Six can fill in what happened next.” Ellorah Harpernet and Gladius Firk stood next.

“Yes indeed,” said Gladius. “We decided to hold off a little while on the destruction of the roads and railways into the Capitol to inflict maximum damage on the Capitol’s Peacekeeper force. We attacked when the first trains and trucks came in. By that point, however, they were onto us, and while we managed to destroy all of the entrances into the Capitol, there were still several divisions made up of hundreds of Peacekeepers each that were able to slip through. We have forces blockading the Capitol, but need reinforcements.”

“But not all of the Peacekeepers were able to slip past us. Many of them were blown up along with the roads and tracks,” said Ellorah Harpernet.

“Then our next step is to attack the dam,” said Clarabella Dustin. “Once again, I hope that we are all aware of the fact that if we cut the power to the Capitol using the dam, then we cut the power to the rest of the districts, too.”

“But there’s a way that we can restore it,” said Dravius Pillock of Three. “Districts Five and Three have been working closely together to establish a plan to restore power to the districts only, but we cannot provide power to the closest parts of each district that borders the Capitol without restoring power to the Capitol.”

“That’s better than nothing,” said Carolina. “We cut the power, then restore it to the districts and keep the Capitol in the dark. Do we attack the Capitol at night or do we wait until daylight?”

“Unfortunately, the Capitol is well aware that the rebel forces are going to attack,” said Beetee. “They’ve set up traps all around the Capitol called Pods, which are set to go off and destroy whoever activates them. They are random, and invisible, but using a device that Senator Mellark - Katniss, I mean - rescued from District Eight, we were able to map out the locations of each Pod that we detected in a reconnaissance mission over the Capitol.” He pulled out a small device and set it on the table. “This here is called a Holo, and it only knows the locations of the Pods that we’ve already detected. It is likely that new Pods have been laid, but the Holo may still be able to detect them when doing a scan.”

“So we can attack at any time, pretty much, and we’ll get the same results, but the sooner we attack, the less likely it is that there will be new Pods,” Katniss said.

“That is correct, Senator Mellark,” said Beetee.

“So what are we waiting for?” asked Johanna irritably. “If it doesn’t matter when, then what are we waiting for? Let’s bring down the damn Capitol!”

“Senator Mason, we have to take out the dam first. If we cut their power, we weaken them and increase our chances of taking them out faster,” said Clarabella, and Johanna huffed.

“The war’s been going on for too damn long. Let’s put this shit to bed, for fuck’s sake,” she said bitterly.

“Then take out the dam sooner,” I chimed in. “Why wait? Take it out sooner rather than later. The sooner the dam is out, the sooner we can get into the Capitol.”

“The dam is very well protected by Peacekeepers,” said Clarabella.

“Who just lost their home base,” Katniss replied. No matter how much she frustrated me sometimes, I admired her initiative. Katniss was a very ambitious, goal-oriented woman who stopped at nothing when going for what she was aiming for. She shot straight, both with a bow and arrow and with her initiative. I smiled as she responded back to the senate and gave her hand a squeeze of confidence.

“Fair enough, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s still hundreds of Peacekeepers protecting the dam,” said Clarabella.

“We’ll send in some rebel forces from Nine,” said Tremor Ureon.

“They’ll have a limited supply of Peacekeepers, now that a lot of the roads, tracks and their base are destroyed,” Katniss said. “If Nine and Seven each send in forces, the Peacekeepers will be outnumbered. We can really secure the victory by sending in forces from Ten and Eight as well.”

“District Eight will be glad to send in forces to aid in the destruction of the dam,” said Paylor.

“Thank you, Senator Paylor,” Katniss said to her. “Seven and Ten?”

“You speak like a commander,” said Rufus Ripley of Ten.

“She’ll be commanding the Siege of the Capitol,” said Gale, seemingly with pride. Jealousy flashed in my eyes as I looked at him, and I caught Katniss’s attention out of her side vision. She looked at me out of her side of her eye and gave my hand a squeeze.

“What an honour, Senator Mellark,” said Rufus. “If Senator Eshwater is in agreement, I do believe that District Ten would be happy to send in rebel forces to assist in bringing down the dam. But we’ll also have forces prepared to converge on the Capitol.”

“I am in agreement, Senator Ripley,” said Lystra Eshwater.

“District Seven should send in forces, too,” said Jonny Woodstock. “Don’t you think, Johanna?”

“If it’ll end the war sooner, and decapitate Snow faster,” Johanna replied.

“Spoken like a Victor,” said Lystra Eshwater with her eyebrows raised, and Johanna glared at her.

“So then it’s decided. Senators Dustin and Avisdee will initiate the attack on the dam in District Five, cutting power to the Capitol, and we will advance the attack on the Capitol,” said Magnow, and the room gave a hum of agreement.

“The sooner, the better,” said Katniss.

“Then the decision is made,” said Haymitch, who became less and less involved the more coherent the senate became. “Meeting adjourned.” As the senators got up from their seats and dispersed, a few of us hung around the table for a moment, myself and Katniss included.

“You heading back to the lab?” I asked her, and she shook her head. “Where are you off to?”

“Bed, probably. I don’t feel so well,” she replied. I held a hand to her forehead, not noting a fever.

“Katniss,” I said to her. “Be honest with me. Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking down at our hands on the table. “I’m still not sure what my reaction is...”

“Your reaction to what?” I asked her, brushing a chocolate brown curl from her face. She glanced over my shoulder, then met my eyes.

“I’ll tell you later, I promise. Calum’s waiting for you,” she replied, and I turned to see him waiting by the door, nodded to him, and looked back at Katniss.

“Okay,” I said, and I kissed her forehead and stood.

“I love you, Peeta,” she told me as I stood, and I looked down at her.

“I love you, too,” I told her, bending down to kiss her lips, and then I left her to join Calum, exchanging one final glance with her before we left.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

“Are you all right?” Carolina whispered to me after Peeta left, and I let out a sigh. All that remained in the command room was myself, Carolina and Johanna, who climbed up on the table to sit instead of in her chair. I glanced at both of them briefly.

“Can the two of you keep a secret?” I asked them.

“You know I can,” Carolina replied, and I turned to look at Johanna.

“Who am I gonna tell?” she asked with attitude, and I shook my head with amusement.

“I’ve had a bit of a wrench thrown into my plans,” I said to the two women in the room. “I’ve just promised Peeta that I would tell him, but to be honest, I don’t know if I should... If he finds out, he might raise a big stink about me going to the Capitol, and I have to be there.”

“What, are you knocked up for real this time?” asked Johanna.

“Actually... yes,” I said, and Carolina gasped, while Johanna straightened up and stared at me with wide eyes.

“Katniss!” Carolina exclaimed. “I thought you two were using protection! Calum and I are! You can’t just _not_ use protection!”

“Excuse me?” I said with wide eyes, trying to decide if I heard her correctly or not.

“This isn’t about me!” Carolina exclaimed. “Katniss, you have to tell Peeta. You can’t keep this from him.”

“Does your father know you’re shagging my brother?” I asked her.

“ _Katniss_ ,” Carolina said to me, and she sighed. “Fine, yes, I’m fucking your brother and you kNow what? It’s incredible. He’s incredible. And no, my father doesn’t know and I’d like it to stay that way. He thinks we’re friends. Now that that’s in the air, let’s get back to you. You _have_ to tell Peeta. This is _not_ something you should keep from him.”

“You should know better than anyone that women’s bodies are very resilient. You can tell him that, too,” Johanna chimed in, and I glanced at her. “What? My mother was an obstetrician, too.”

“And what if he uses this information to get me taken off of command? Then he’ll be left in command and he won’t let me do anything,” I said to the two women.

“Do you really think he’d do that?” Johanna asked me.

“He’s been very firm about refusing to allow me to go on any missions without him,” I replied.

“And from what I’ve heard from Dad, you’ve been very firm on him not going on any missions,” Carolina told me, and I sighed. Of course Peeta was going to Haymitch for advice.

“For a couple of people who claim to love each other so much, you have a lot of disagreements,” Johanna said.

“And what about all of your squabbles with Gale?” Carolina asked her.

“ _What?_ ” I asked, shocked at what I had just heard. Did I hear that correctly? Did I hear that Johanna and Gale are in a relationship?

“Oh, don’t act so surprised that your ex-boyfriend moved on. You got married,” Johanna spat at me.

“He was never my boyfriend,” I spat back. “I never loved him that way, ever. If he ever told you that I have, he’s lying. But you and Gale? What’s that about?”

“None of your business. None of _any_ of your business. How’d you even know, Abernathy?” Johanna asked the other girl.

“The walls have ears, and they echo,” Carolina replied, and Johanna just rolled her eyes. Calum and Carolina, Gale and Johanna, I was pregnant with Peeta’s child and about to invade the Capitol... All this was too much. I stood and stepped away from the pair of them for a moment, taking a deep breath before turning back to face them.

“I’ll tell him tonight, then... but I need you both to help me out. Don’t let him get me taken off of command and don’t let him forbid me from going because I’m going to the Capitol no matter what,” I told the two girls, and they both nodded with agreement. “Thanks... No one outside of this room knows anything. The only ones who will know about this are me, you two and Peeta. No one else.”

“You got it, Mellarky,” said Johanna.

“Good luck,” said Carolina, and I took my leave, retiring to the bedroom early so that I had time to think of how I would tell Peeta. How does one even announce that? ‘Hey, Peeta, I know we’re about to invade the Capitol that has lots of explosive, destructive shit, but guess what? I’m pregnant!’ God, I had a lot of thinking to do. I lay on the bed lost in thought, coming up with ideas and scrapping them moments later. Before I knew it, hours had passed, and I heard the door open and with the sound, my stomach dropped. Peeta walked in with two trays of food, one for each of us, and he stood watching me on the bed.

“You weren’t at dinner,” he said calmly.

“Not really hungry,” I replied.

“Katniss, you’ve gotta eat something.”

“Don’t think I could stomach it, to be honest.” I was staring at the ceiling, not daring to bring my eyes to him. I heard him set down both trays on the dresser and I heard him let out a sigh. I could see him out of the corner of my eye.

“There is no Maude Littany.” This was it. This was the moment that I had been dreading all day. “Katniss, is there something you want to tell me?” I still hadn’t thought of the best way to tell him. Do I dance around it? Make him guess? Or do I just tell him? It was a tense moment, with both of us stressed with one another. He was upset with me for keeping secrets, and I was upset with him for the potentiality of him taking the Siege away from me. But that was it. The _potentiality_. What if he didn’t? “Katniss.”

“I’m pregnant,” I decided to say, and I could hear him take a quiet gasp. I still didn’t look at him, and his silence felt like an eternity. Oh, God damn it, Peeta, just say something!

“You’re... really?” he said finally. Seriously? All this panicking for that?

“Yup.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since Maude Littany’s pregnancy test came back positive.”

“Were you going to tell me before we went to the Capitol or after?”

“I’ve spent the better part of the last three hours trying to decide the best way to tell you tonight.”

“And did you come up with a better way than how you just said it?”

“Nope.” Another moment of silence passed between us, and then I felt his weight on the bed as he sat on the edge.

“Katniss... You know what this means, don’t you?”

“You’re not taking away my command, nor are you stopping me from going to the Capitol.”

“I never said I was going to...”

“So what does it mean, then?” I said with irritability, finally looking at him. He appeared sad, almost, but he wasn’t hard towards me.

“Katniss, I don’t want you going to the Capitol.”

“But you won’t stop me.”

“I know. But I want you to think about it. You’ve got another life to worry about other than your own.”

“I’ve always had another life to worry about, Peeta,” I said, sitting up. “I never wanted you to go to the Capitol. I never wanted you to leave the base.”

“That’s not happening, either.”

“I’m aware that it’s not.” Peeta was silent again, first glancing down at the floor, and then towards my stomach.

“How far along do you think you are?”

“A month, maybe... Five weeks, even? The condom must have broke...”

“Five weeks ago was our first time, wasn’t it?” I nodded. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he stood and pulled me into his arms, picking me up and then sitting back down onto the bed with me on his lap and in his arms. He pressed his forehead against mine. “We’ll get through this... We’ve been through worse.”

“You’re not going to stop me?”

“No. I want to, but I won’t. I know you’d hate me forever if I stopped you. You’ve always loved being where the action is. Fighting for what you believe is right, risking your life for the things you love most...”

“Gale says I’m reckless and stupid,” I said.

“You’ll be more careful. I know you will,” he replied. He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Just think... After all this, we’ll go home, start our little family... You, me, and our beautiful little baby.” He smiled at me. “It’ll be a whole different world before we know it.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner... I was still in shock myself, I didn’t know what to think or if it was a false positive or what...”

“It’s okay. I’d be pretty scared, too.” I looked up into his eyes, which were filled with love, tenderness and sorrow all mixed into one. I brought my hand up to his face and brought my lips to his to kiss him.

“There was another song I heard, in the archives that day I was researching for the senate. I probably could have shared this one, too, but I could tell District Two was getting sick of me.”

“Can you sing it to me?”

“I don’t remember most of it now...”

“Sing what you can remember. I love when you sing to me.” I smiled at him, still holding his face in my hand as I looked into his beautiful blue eyes.

_I dreamed I saw the bombers_

_Riding shotgun in the sky_

_And they were turning into butterflies_

_Above our nation..._

_We are stardust,_

_We are golden,_

_We have got to get ourselves_

_Back to the garden..._


	18. Chapter XVII: Empty Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta, Calum and Cailean reveal their surprise. Peeta and Katniss spend one last night together before a new world is built.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More explicit sexual activity featured.
> 
> ‘Empty Wine’ — Gentle Soul

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

The two words I never thought I’d hear uttered from her lips were the words ‘I’m pregnant’, and I heard them uttered to me last night. She lay asleep beside me in my arms, but I couldn’t sleep. I had too much on my mind to sleep. I always thought that children would come later, if at all, not right away. I thought we were being careful, but I guess we weren’t being careful enough. I was conflicted. On one hand, I wanted to protect her and keep our baby safe, but on the other hand, I knew she’d never forgive me if I let her miss out on the Siege. I looked down into her sleeping face, which was as beautiful as it always had been, but perhaps even more so, now. The longer we were together, the more I fell in love with her. I smiled at her as she slept, then began to stroke her hair until I found myself joining her in slumber.

Two days after the attack on the Nut and the blockade of the Capitol, the rebel forces attacked the dam, cutting power to all of Panem, excluding District Fourteen. The Siege of the Capitol would begin in two days. Two days left of the Panem that we have known all of our lives, of the Panem that had existed since the planet fell into chaos barely a century ago. Panem as we knew it was born in the year 2057 from the ashes of the former United States of America. Panem, like the United States, would burn, and from its ashes will rise a new Panem. A safer world for Katniss, and a safer world for our baby. I was anxious as I counted the days until the Siege, and I kept Katniss very close to me. She didn’t fight me, because she understood that I was anxious about the outcome of the war. What if we did lose again? That was highly unlikely, given the damage we’ve done to the Capitol and its resources. 

“I think it’s time we unveil our surprise,” Calum told me when Katniss had briefly left my side to run to the bathroom. She was gone only for a few minutes, but those few minutes were ice cold without her to keep me warm. I nodded my head in agreement.

“Tonight, then... Invite only tonight, and tomorrow, everyone else can have it,” I said, and Calum agreed.

We held a brief senate meeting that afternoon, the last before the Siege, and hopefully, the last of the old world. Everyone was somber and quiet. We all knew loss. All of us had lost homes, family, friends, pieces of ourselves, and some of us had lost all of those things. There were no disagreements, just messages of hope as the districts supported one another in preparation for the Siege. Our team would fly out tomorrow and stay overnight in the base that had been set up on the outskirts of the Capitol in District Ten, and the next day, teams would converge on the Capitol from all entrances, and the Siege would begin.

“I can’t believe it’s finally here,” Katniss muttered to me with a tone of melancholy when the senate was dismissed. I held her hand and gave it a tight squeeze.

“I know,” I said, feeling the exact same way. That evening at dinner, we all sat at our table for dinner - myself, Katniss, Calum and Cailean, Carolina, Gale, Johanna - but none of us really wanted to eat. Carolina was seated closely to Calum, and Johanna was beside Gale, who was rubbing her back as she stared at her food.

“Tonight, I want all of you to meet in 2134,” Calum said to the table. “The surprise that Cailean, Peeta and I have been working on forever is finally ready, and I want us all to be the first to enjoy it.”

“And the last,” said Johanna bitterly. Johanna wasn’t going on the mission - evidently, Gale had refused to allow her to, and frankly, I don’t think she minded. It must have slipped my notice when they had started a relationship, but it meant that I didn’t have to worry about him pining over my wife anymore.

After dinner, Katniss and I went up to the beach for one last time, listening to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore and feeling the sand between our toes. Also on the beach was Finnick, Annie, Killick and their little daughter, Ariel, and they were the picture of a perfect family. We didn’t want to disturb them, so we kept our distance, and Katniss and I sat close together as we watched the sunset. My hands rested on her abdomen, where the life inside of her grew. “We should name it,” I said, breaking the silence.

“It’s just a clump of cells,” she told me, placing her hands over mine and watching them.

“So were we, at one point,” I told her, and she was silent. “I like the name Lark, for a girl...”

“Lark Mellark? She’ll be the laughingstock of her school,” Katniss replied, and I chuckled.

“It’s cute though. Little Lark Mellark... And you said in Hebridia, you have middle names?”

“We don’t need to do middle names...”

“I like it. What about Lark Meadow Mellark?”

“It is a pretty name,” she admitted. “And if it’s a boy?”

“Hm... Well, we both have a brother with a similar name... What about something along the lines of Dòmhnall and Donnel?”

“Like Donald?”

“I like that. Donald Mellark.”

“Donald Willow Mellark.” I bent down to kiss the top of her head.

“Our children will have the names of nature.”

“Little hippie names.”

“What names?”

“The people who kickstarted the antiwar revolution, now two centuries ago... they were called ‘hippies’.”

“Then I guess we’ll have little hippie babies.” She chuckled gently, then looked up at me as I met her eyes.

“I miss the meadow...” she muttered, and I ran a finger down the side of her face as she reached up to take my hand.

“We’ll see it soon,” I told her. The Odairs went inside before we did, and we went back in when it got dark. Remembering Calum’s request, we went to Room 2134, the room that Calum, Cailean and I had been working on for so many weeks. I left Katniss’s side only for a moment to stand beside Calum and Cailean as we stood in front of a small crowd made up of Johanna, Gale, Carolina, Finnick and Annie, who must have found someone to watch their children for the evening.

“Hello and welcome to the grand unveiling of...” said Calum, and he cut the ribbon he’d placed on the door and pushed the double doors open to reveal, “the Game Room!” The crowd looked amused as they looked inside, noticing a series of games like darts, a pool table, a ping pong table, couches, tables, a bar, a kitchen and so much more. “Don’t waste time, get inside!” As everyone crowded inside, Katniss stopped beside me and pulled me into her arms.

“So this is the big surprise you’ve been keeping for weeks?” she asked me, her chin on my chest and her eyes meeting mine.

“What? Not impressed?” I asked her, catching her chin with my finger.

“Incredibly impressed, and I’m looking forward to kicking your ass at ping pong,” she told me, and I laughed and pressed my lips to hers.

“You are on,” I told her, and we went inside to join the rest of our friends.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

I did kick his ass at ping pong. Three times, in fact. The first time, I thought he was just letting me win, but then I realised that he truly did suck at the game and I stopped after three victories to let him keep at least some of his dignity. A group of us joined a game of pool as well, with Finnick impressing everyone with his skills. We listened to music from an old device called an iPod that Cailean had found on a mission and danced together, laughing and making memories that we may not ever see again. Perhaps about two hours in, Johanna summoned us all to sit on the couch.

“So I found out about this game called beer pong,” she said. “You set up a bunch of cups full of beer on either side of a table and you try to throw a ping pong ball into it and if you succeed, the person standing in front of it has to drink that cup and you continue until either you run out of cups or you’re too drunk to carry on.”

“That sounds amazing,” I said. I was seated on the couch with one leg under my bum and Peeta’s arm around my shoulders. Given the fact that tomorrow, we would be within arm’s reach of the Capitol, I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could. Who knew if we had much left?

“Wanna test it out?” Johanna asked me, and before I knew it, Peeta and I were on either side of the ping pong table with nine cups each in front of us. Both sets of cups did have beer in them, but I would be drinking water because I ‘didn’t like the taste of beer’. Peeta smiled at me when I said that, and he was right when he said I’d be more careful. “Right, so Katniss, you take the first shot at Peeta’s cups.” I aimed my ping pong ball at the center cup, then threw it in the air and it landed perfectly in the cup, and the rest of our little group clapped. “Now Peeta, you drink that.” He did, and then set the cup aside. “Since Katniss threw the ball in the cup, she gets another turn.” I repeated my aim and again successfully sank the ball into another cup.

“Where’s the fun for me if I get drunk before we’ve hardly even begun?” asked Peeta with amusement.

“All right, all right, everyone gets the gist. Boys against girls?” asked Johanna to the group.

“But there’s five boys and four girls,” said Calum.

“We’re not worried,” I said, reminding him of the two points I just scored.

“Oh really? Want to make a bet?” asked Finnick with a sly smile of amusement, and I returned it.

“Oh, you’re on,” I said. “If we can kick your asses with one less member, you lot have to jump off the rocks at the entrance into the water in your underpants.”

“No way, that’s too cold!” exclaimed Gale.

“And if we win?” Finnick asked me.

“Then we do it,” I said.

“No bras,” said Cailean mischievously, and I laughed.

“You’re on,” I said, and Finnick and I shook on it. The boys learned quickly that they’d made a mistake when I sunk three balls in a row.

“It’s not fair, she’s the straightest shot I’ve ever seen!” Peeta exclaimed.

“You’ve got Gale, that must count for something,” I said back, reminding them of the fact that Gale was a pretty straight shot, too.

“That would be great, if he actually managed to throw a ball in a cup!” Finnick exclaimed, resulting in a laugh from the group. The boys lost, of course, and they all stood outside on the rocks in their underwear shivering from the cold of the night air.

“Go on, you bunch of chickens,” I said, a camera in my hand as I waited for them to jump in.

“Have some mercy on us, woman. It’s cold as hell!” Finnick exclaimed, and I let out a laugh.

“No mercy - you made a bet and you lost!” I said back.

“In the drink you go!” Carolina exclaimed.

“Hold hands on your way in,” said Johanna. They didn’t, but it took the five young men a few moments to gather their courage before they jumped into the icy cold water.

“It’s so cold!” Finnick cried out.

“Can this torture be over with?” begged Calum as the four of us girls laughed at them.

“Not yet!” I said, handing the camera to Annie as I stripped down to my undergarments and jumped in after them. Carolina, too, joined us, and there were now seven of us in the icy cold water laughing and splashing one another. I saw Johanna sit down, Gale climbed up and out of the water to join her. I was seated on a rock that was mostly submerged and I was joined by Peeta, who swam over to me.

“Hope you’re happy you made an icicle of me,” he said as he joined me on the rock and captured my lips in a kiss.

“This is one of the highlights of my life and I will be holding onto that video forever,” I told him.

“You filmed this?” he asked, but he was smiling, and I leaned in to kiss him but instead, shoved him off of the rock and back into the water, and he splashed me as I laughed. Soon, pretty much everyone was jumping back into the water - well, all but Johanna. Gale had left her side to help Calum capture Carolina and toss her back in, and I sat beside Johanna.

“Don’t you want to join in on the fun?” I asked her, and she shook her head. “What’s the matter?”

“Can’t swim,” she lied.

“Johanna, you and I both know that that isn’t true,” I told her. “What’s really bothering you?” She was silent for a moment.

“We’re just kids,” she said. “All of us. Finnick is the oldest one here, and he’s hardly an adult... The rest of us are barely into our twenties.”

“I get what you mean,” I said, watching the chaos in the water. “We might be kids, but it’s kids who change the world. It’s always been the young who incite rebellion and it’s always been the young who do everything they can to change their futures.”

“I know... I guess it just surprises me, that we’re all so young. Not because it’s us falling into an endless cycle of the young trumping the old, tossing away the old ways in favour of new ones... but because we’re all so young, but we don’t look it, or feel it,” Johanna replied.

“We all have lived a lifetime, and yet, we’ve barely lived at all,” I said. “I understand you’re not coming to the Siege?” She shook her head.

“Give Snow hell,” she told me. “Make him pay for everything he’s done, for the lives he’s ruined... for the lives he’s taken.”

As it hit midnight, it was time for us all to wind down, as the next day meant that all but Johanna and Annie would be going to the Capitol to prepare for the Siege. Peeta and I shed our wet undergarments and collapsed into our bed nude and holding onto each other as if we’d never see each other again. He stroked my hair gently and gazed into my eyes, and I held his other hand tightly and buried my other hand in his hair beneath his head. “One last time?” he whispered to me.

“It won’t be the last time,” I whispered back.

“But what if it is?”

“It won’t be. I’ll make damn sure of it. You’re not allowed to leave me, same as I know I’m not allowed to leave you.” He smiled gently, sadly, and ran a finger down my face. “So instead, say to me, ‘one more time’?”

“One more time, then?” he asked again, and I smiled and nodded, and he sat up on his elbows to hover over me and kiss me with more passion, hunger and desire than I had felt him kiss me with in a long time. This wasn’t a ‘I see you everyday but I still love you’ type of kiss, this was a ‘let’s seize the moment and make it count, because we might never have the chance again’ kiss. I’ll bet it was the same kiss that Calum and Carolina were sharing that night, and definitely the same kiss that Finnick and Annie were sharing, and maybe even the same kiss that Johanna and Gale were sharing. He broke the kiss for a moment. “Should I get a condom?”

“What’s the point? I’m already pregnant,” I told him, and he nodded and smiled, then resumed kissing me, his hand finding its way to my breast and his thumb rubbing circles on my nipple. I groaned with pleasure as I ran my hands through his hair and kissed him with hunger and lust, and when his lips fell to my neck, I let out a louder, longer moan. “Oh, Peeta...” He started moving south. His lips brushed against my collarbone, my breasts, both of my nipples where his tongue came into contact with them, and then he went even further down. I felt his hands slide to my hips and I felt the warmth of his trail of kisses make their way to my vagina, and god, the explosion of pleasure that went through me the moment his tongue came into contact with my clitoris. Being an obstetrician, I of course knew the name of every part of my anatomy, but Peeta didn’t - he called my clitoris ‘my little bean’ and I didn’t have the heart to correct him. His tongue rubbed little circles on it and I arched my back into him begging for more, gripping the pillow as I moaned and groaned and muttered his name under my breath. “Peeta...”

“Katniss,” he whispered as his lips came into contact with my skin, and I felt two of his fingers slide into me as he climbed his way back up and kissed my lips, the taste of me still lingering on them. This wasn’t the kind of lovemaking that went on between two teenagers who fumbled clumsily the way we had the first time, this love was mature, aged well beyond the years that Peeta and I had between us. I moaned into his mouth as he kissed me and slid his fingers in and out, and when he pulled them out to steady himself over me, I pushed him down so that his back was on the bed and I held his wrists against the mattress as I kissed his neck. “Taking initiative, I like that,” he whispered, and I giggled into his neck as I kissed it, and then it was my turn to move south. I couldn’t fully take him into my mouth, recalling how I choked and he laughed the last time I tried that, but I took him into my hand and licked his tip, then his shaft, and he moaned with pleasure as I started moving my hand up and down. “Katniss...” he whispered into the night. Where I was sitting, he couldn’t reach me, so I reached my hand down to rub little circles of my own on ‘my little bean’.

God, how I loved this man. We’d been through so much, from hardly noticing each other to having to kill each other, from refusing to do so to pretending that we were engaged and madly in love, from being thrown into the arena yet again to confessing our love for one another, from our growing relationship to our marriage, to two years of being apart, to being reunited again, to our first time making love to one another, to the life that we created that grew inside of me, to the moment that we were in now. I felt his hands in my hair as I groaned from my own self-pleasure and continued to lick and rub his penis. “Katniss...” He wasn’t moaning my name this time, he was calling me, and I picked up my head to meet his eyes, which were desperate with a desire for me, and only me.

“Yes, Peeta?” I responded.

“I need you... now...” he whispered, and I smiled as I continued to hold him in my hand and climbed my way to him, kissing him and allowing him to taste himself on my lips.

“Your wish is my command,” I told him, and I sat back up and guided him into me as I sat down on top of him, letting out a groan of pleasure as I wrapped around him and pushed his full length into me. I moved back to his lips, kissing him as I rocked my hips up and down, up and down, again and again, both of our hands getting lost in each other’s hair. He then turned me over so that I was back on my back and he continued to pump gently into me.

“Oh, Katniss... Katniss...” he moaned, moving his lips to my neck as I cried out his name with pleasure. I could feel the pressure building up within me and I knew I was about to explode. My moans became louder, my grip on his hair became stronger.

“Peeta... _Peeta!_ ” I cried, feeling my release, and moments later, I felt his within me, matched with his own cry of my name, and he collapsed on top of me, both of us panting and glistening with sweat. I held him against me and stroked his sweat-soaked, salty ashy blonde hair and I wiped away the beads of sweat that formed at his temple, kissing the spot as I caught my breath. “I love you, my perfect, handsome Peeta.”

“I love you, Katniss...” he said breathlessly. “You have no idea how incredible you are...”

“If it’s anything how you make me feel, I can take a guess,” I said, and he chuckled as he turned his head to kiss my face, then he picked up his head to kiss my lips. “You ready for round two?” I whispered to him, and he laughed. There was a round two, and a round three, and as we were about to consider a round four, we fell into a deep and happy slumber, wrapped up in each other’s arms, unable - no, _unwilling_ \- to let go.


	19. Chapter XVIII: Parallelograms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rebels prepare for the Siege of the Capitol. Katniss meets up with a familiar face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Parallelograms’ — Linda Perhacs

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

_ The Victory Tour would start in District Eleven, where we would go on stage and give a speech to the people of the District, giving our appreciation and respect to the families of the tributes lost. The tributes had been Rue and Thresh. Personally, I didn’t know either of them, but Katniss had allied herself with Rue and Thresh spared her life when she went to get the medicine for my leg. I gave a short speech mentioning just that, and I looked to Katniss, silently asking her if she wanted to give a speech, and she shook her head. We wrapped up, and I was led back inside by Peacekeepers, but Katniss was still standing beside the microphone, staring at little Rue’s family. “I don’t think we’re done,” I said to the Peacekeepers, and I went back out onto the stage and stood beside her, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. _

_ “I didn’t know Thresh,” she began. “He only saved my life, as Peeta said, and therefore in turn saved his because I was able to get his medicine... But I knew Rue. Rue and I were very close. I trusted her, and she trusted me. She reminded me of my little sister... I wanted to keep her safe and protect her, but I couldn’t...” Tears started to form out of the corners of her eyes. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save her...” _

_ Suddenly, as if planned, an older man in the crowd brought three fingers to his lips, then raised them in the traditional District Twelve sign of respect that we use at funerals, and he whistled the four notes that Katniss had taught me in the arena, and that Rue had taught her. Suddenly, many people all around him did the same, and the audience of District Eleven was a sea of hands in the air. My stomach dropped when I heard the sounds of the Peacekeepers extending their batons, and both Katniss and I were grabbed by Peacekeepers and forcibly dragged inside. _

_ “Katniss!” I shouted, trying to reach for her after being ripped away from her, but I was dragged inside of the building until I couldn’t see her anymore. _

_ “No! No! Peeta!” I heard her shouting. The Peacekeepers had dragged the old man up on the stage as others dragged Katniss inside of the Justice Building. “What did I do? What did I do?” she screeched through tears, and just before the doors closed, we saw the Peacekeepers raise a gun to the old man’s head and fire it, and the door was closed. I stood stunned and silent, everything around me going silent as I held my hands over my mouth in shock and watched as Katniss screamed and cried and shouted at the Peacekeepers to let her go, demanding to know what she did wrong, and I saw Haymitch grab her, but she shoved him away, and I was released from my shock. I quickly yanked myself free from the Peacekeepers and ran to her, taking her into my arms as she threw her arms around me, crying into my shoulder as she held onto me as if she’d die if I let her go. “What did I do... What did I do...” _

_ “Shh, it’s okay... It’s gonna be okay...” was all I could say to her, but I knew it wasn’t going to be. I knew that Panem was erupting into flames, and I knew that a rebellion had been simmering for quite some time and now was mere moments from boiling over. “Shhh... Katniss, shh...” I cooed into her ear as she continued to cry into my shoulder and cling to me. _

_ “We need to get you two back on the train,” said one of the Peacekeepers, trying to grab Katniss’s arm, but I shoved his hand away. _

_ “We can walk ourselves,” I told him, and I loosened my grip on Katniss. “Katniss, we’ve got to go now...” I brushed a piece of hair out of her face as she nodded, wiping tears from her eyes with her sleeve, and together, with my arm tightly around her shoulders, we returned to the train. _

* * *

The time had come. It was six in the morning, and we boarded a hovercraft destined for District Seven, on the outskirts of the Capitol. We were informed that a meal would be provided in flight and to make ourselves comfortable, as it was easily a four hour flight. Katniss was there, of course, and so was Gale. Calum and Cailean, Carolina, Finnick, Zeodary Sage who would serve as Second Medic behind Katniss, and Hadley Walker. Donnel and Graham Leper would be joining us from District Two, Cressida Dubrow and both Castor and Pollux Chatham would already be there when we arrived. I glanced up as I saw Gale embracing Johanna tightly, wishing and hoping that he would see her again. Finnick was embracing Annie and his two children, giving them their final hugs and kisses and telling all of them how much he loved them. Haymitch was tightly holding Carolina one final time.

“You take care, kiddo, and you get back home, all right?” Haymitch said to his daughter, who nodded as she embraced him. “I love you, kiddo. Don’t forget that.”

“I love you, too, Dad,” she said, then broke the embrace to board the hovercraft. Haymitch then approached both Katniss and me, wiping something from his eye.

“You too, both of you,” he said. “Stay alive.” We both smiled and nodded, and Katniss pulled our mentor into a tight embrace.

“You stay safe,” she told him.

“Take care of the boy, sweetheart, and I’ll see you soon,” he said to her, and then they broke the embrace and Haymitch held out a hand to me. “And you, keep her safe. I know you will.” I nodded as I took his hand, then pulled him into an equally tight embrace.

“I will,” I said.

“Bring each other home,” said Haymitch, and he waved us off as we, too, boarded the hovercraft. There was no turning back now. Katniss and I were both commanders, and we had a division to lead. We glanced at each other before the door closed, locking us in, and we felt the hovercraft take off.

“You should get some sleep,” I told Katniss, who appeared a bit nauseous.

“I don’t think I’d be able to,” she told me. I took her hand in mine and brought it to my lips, then I took my thumb and pressed it into a pressure point in her wrist. My mother could be terribly nasty, but she did teach me about a pressure point in the wrist that could ward off morning sickness, motion sickness and nausea. She smiled at me, then closed her eyes to help herself ward off the nausea.

When we arrived in District Seven, it was a little unsettling, to say the least. Katniss and I were the last to step off, and when we did, we drew the attention of a crowd. At first, we simply stood there as people whispered and pointed at us, and then Katniss took my hand. “Come on, Commander Mellark,” she told me with a smile, and I looked at her and returned it as we started towards all the tents.

“Well, if it isn’t my baby brother!” I heard Donnel exclaim, and when I turned, he was walking towards me.

“Donnel!” I exclaimed, happy to see my brother for the first time since we were in District Eight. He pulled me into a tight hug and playfully ruffled my hair. “How’s the war?”

“Hell,” he said. “How’s the senate?”

“Also hell,” I said with a chuckle, and he turned to Katniss.

“And there’s my lovely sister-in-law. How are you?” he asked her, and she smiled and embraced him.

“Doing wonderful! Your brother takes such good care of me,” she replied.

“If only Mama could see us now,” Donnel said to me with a smile. “Commander, Senate Representative... You’d have finally given her something to smile about.”

“Mama didn’t like the rebellion,” I told him. “You know that. She wanted to stay behind in the firebombing.” He nodded gently.

“Dad would have been proud,” he replied. “Anyway, you should report to the Command Tent, Commander Lyme and Commander Paylor are waiting there.” Katniss and I both said our goodbyes and headed for the Command Tent, where we were greeted by both Commander Lyme, a blonde middle-aged woman who once won the Hunger Games years ago, and Commander Paylor. Commander Paylor smiled when we entered the tent.

“Well, here we are, the day of the Siege of the Capitol,” she said.

“The day of? I thought we were starting it tomorrow?” Katniss asked them.

“We thought it best to start as soon as possible. The sooner, the better,” said Commander Lyme. “You said it yourself, according to Commander Paylor. The sooner we start, the less new Pods that are out there. You got your Holo?”

“Indeed we do,” Katniss said, opening her satchel and pulling out the Holo.

“Excellent. If you run into trouble, say ‘Nightlock’ three times into it and it’ll self-destruct. Who’s your medic? They need to report to the Medic Tent to collect their supplies,” said Lyme.

“That would be Katniss and Zeodary Sage,” I told her, and she looked at us with surprise.

“Commander  _ and _ medic?” Lyme asked.

“It’d be a waste of her skills in medicine to just keep her as a commander,” I replied.

“Guess I’ll pop off to the Medic Tent. Update me later,” Katniss told me, and she touched my shoulder and left my side, and I watched her until she disappeared.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked the two women before me.

“Start the invasion at noon,” said Commander Lyme. Your unit is to start at the West Entrance, mine at the North, Commander Paylor at the South and Commander Jackson at the East Entrance.”

“At noon? We just got here, my team is exhausted from travelling,” I explained.

“Not my problem, Mellark. Invasion starts at noon,” Lyme replied firmly.

“And who decided that? Because I know the Senate sure didn’t. Paylor and I are both on the Senate,” I spat back.

“It was decided this morning between myself, Commander Paylor and Commander Jackson, before you arrived,” said Lyme.

“The plan is for each team to start at the entrances and converge on the President’s Mansion. When we’ve helped clear the way, bigger forces of rebels will follow behind. We reduce casualties that way,” Paylor chimed in, and I nodded, not liking the plan but not having a choice.

“Very well, then. Guess you should both get to your entrances, then. T minus two hours,” I said, with an equal amount of command and sass that Lyme had given me. Each woman was in her thirties at least, Lyme possibly even older, so to them, I was just some stupid kid who put on his big boy pants for the first time. Nodding to both, I headed towards the tent where my unit was currently waiting for instructions.

“There he is!” said Donnel as I approached. “Commander Mellark, my little brother.”

“Change of plans,” I said. “We don’t attack tomorrow, we attack today at noon.”

“At noon? But we just got here!” Gale exclaimed, frustrated with the sudden change of plan.

“I know. Not my decision,” I replied. At that moment, Katniss ran over, attaching a medical bag to her belt.

“Hey... What I miss?” she asked.

“Nothing other than we attack at noon at the West Entrance,” I replied.

“The West Entrance? At noon?” she repeated, and I nodded. “Blimey, that’s soon!”

“I know,” I replied, and then I addressed the unit. “I don’t know what the Capitol is going to look like. I know there’s Pods everywhere, and they’re designed to kill. There won’t be one that isn’t. We stay close, and we stay behind whoever has the Holo, which will either be Katniss or myself. We are your first and second command, and Katniss is also your medic.” I looked at her and found her staring at me, and she then turned her attention to the unit.

“Get shot in the ass and I’m your girl, but try not to,” she chimed in.

“I’ll do a roll call at half past eleven. Until then, hang tight,” I told them, and Katniss and I stepped away to talk.

“I really like you in this commanding position,” she told me flirtatiously, one of her hands finding its way to my upper arm and running down it. I looked into her eyes and saw that they were somewhat red and puffy, as if she’d been crying.

“Katniss, what’s wrong?” I asked her, somewhat startling the smile off of her face.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” she replied.

“Katniss, come on. I told you I know when you’re lying to me. You’re a terrible liar. Tell me the truth. What’s wrong?” I asked her firmly, and she let out a sigh.

“I saw Prim,” she replied sadly.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

I left Peeta at the Command Tent to collect supplies from the Medical Tent, as I was not only a commander but also the First Medic. I’d wanted to kiss him or kiss his cheek before I left, but I didn’t deem it appropriate in front of Commanders Paylor and Lyme. When I arrived at the Medical Tent, I was given my supplies, and as I was about to leave, I glanced up and saw something very familiar. A blonde braid, long, belonging to one of the medics. She was dressed in an all white jumpsuit with red crosses on each shoulder and on her chest - the uniform of a field medic, so that she may be identified easily. It was a dangerous job, being a field medic. You always had a target on you, and you stuck out like a sore thumb in that all-white jumpsuit. The familiar blue eyes met my grey ones, and I felt her name form at my lips. “Prim...”

It was Primrose, my cousin by blood but my sister by heart. When I had lost all of my siblings and my parents, I clung to her with hope, convincing myself that she was the reason I was still alive. She’d lost her mother, and my uncle wasn’t the same when his first love was murdered. She didn’t see Agnessa as an inconvenient stepmother like I did, she saw her like her true mother, even though she was old enough to remember when Agnessa came into our lives. She hated how cold I could be towards Agnessa sometimes, but she didn’t understand because she was so young when her mother died. She had no memories of her mother, unlike how I did of mine.

I felt my feet carrying my body towards her, and she didn’t move as I stopped in front of her, our eyes meeting for the first time in over two years. She was almost a young woman now, sixteen and beautiful, the same age I had been when she had been reaped and I volunteered in her place. In my eyes was the joy I felt in seeing her again, and in hers, the anger, from when I begged her not to follow her heart to be a field medic. “Prim,” I muttered.

“Katniss,” she replied somewhat coldly in her mixed Hebridean and Panem accent. I let out a cry and pulled her into my arms, squeezing her tightly, but she didn’t embrace me back. When I broke my embrace, I put my hands on her shoulders.

“I can’t believe this... You’re so grown up now,” I said with a smile, but she didn’t return it. “It seems like yesterday, you were just a girl...”

“How did following your dreams go?” she asked me harshly, stepping away from me.

“Prim...” I said sadly.

“You tried to tell me not to follow mine, but you went and followed yours.”

“A field medic is a dangerous job, Prim.”

“So was commanding a unit to ignite the rebellion.” I paused for a moment, knowing that she was indeed right, and I let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry... I should have never stopped you. You were so young, and I just wanted to protect you, but I should have known that I couldn’t protect you forever...”

“Why do you even care? You’ve got two of your brothers back. Your  _ real _ brothers. We’re only cousins.”

“We were raised as sisters, and I’ve always seen you as a sister.”

“You don’t need me anymore, not when you have them.”

“Prim, there’s room in my heart for all of you. Just because I have two of my brothers back does not mean we stopped being sisters.” She looked down at the ground, then back up at me.

“Do you miss her? Mum?”

“How could I not? I didn’t even know about the bombing until weeks after it happened... When we lost communication with Thirteen, I thought it was a connection failure. I had no idea that that meant that Thirteen was gone.” I let out another sigh. “Agnessa and I would butt heads a lot, but she was still the only mother figure I had. Perhaps we were too similar. I was devastated when I learned about the bombing, but I didn’t have time to mourn. We’d lost our home base, and we were constantly on the run. I didn’t have time to mourn anyone, to miss Peeta, to even think about anything but keeping the people that I was with alive.”

“Are you and Peeta together again?” I smiled and nodded.

“We are,” I said. “He’s been so wonderful. I missed him so much when we were apart... You always knew my feelings for him long before I did.” I paused for a moment. “Prim... I’m pregnant...” Her eyes widened and she glanced at my abdomen and then back up at me.

“You are?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Not very far along, but I am pregnant. We want to call it Lark if it’s a girl, or Donald if it’s a boy.”

“Lark Mellark?” Prim said with confusion, and I let out a laugh.

“Yes, that’s what Peeta wants... It’ll grow on me, I believe, with time.” It was her turn to smile gently, and then she looked back at the other medics who were still setting up the hundreds of cots.

“I’d better get back to setting up... It was good to see you, Katniss... I missed you,” she said. I thought she might hug me, but she didn’t, instead only standing there awkwardly. “I’ll see you when this is all over?” I smiled warmly at her.

“See you when it’s over,” I said, and I left her to her duties. As I left the Medical Tent wiping tears from my eyes, I started towards the Command Tent, but then I saw Peeta standing in front of our unit talking to them. Attaching the medic pack to my belt, I walked over to him.

“I know. Not my decision,” he was saying as I approached.

“Hey... What I miss?” I asked, jumping into the middle of the conversation.

“Nothing other than we attack at noon at the West Entrance,” he told me..

“The West Entrance? At noon?” I repeated, baffled at the sudden change, and he nodded. “Blimey, that’s soon!”

“I know,” he replied, and then he turned to address the unit. “I don’t know what the Capitol is going to look like. I know there’s Pods everywhere, and they’re designed to kill. There won’t be one that isn’t. We stay close, and we stay behind whoever has the Holo, which will either be Katniss or myself.” I was smiling as I looked up at him, admiring how strong and manly he looked and sounded. He had a little bit of stubble on his face, having forgotten to shave before we left Fourteen, and it only added to the masculine aura he gave off. “We are your first and second command, and Katniss is also your medic.” I came back to reality at the mention of my name.

“Get shot in the ass and I’m your girl, but try not to,” I said.

“I’ll do a roll call at half past eleven. Until then, hang tight,” Peeta told the unit, and he and I stepped away to talk.

“I really like you in this commanding position,” I told him flirtatiously, one of my hands finding its way to his upper arm and running down it. He didn’t smile, but instead, met my eyes.

“Katniss, what’s wrong?” he asked me. Damn him, he could read me like an open book. The smile from my face faded.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” I lied.

“Katniss, come on. I told you I know when you’re lying to me. You’re a terrible liar. Tell me the truth. What’s wrong?” he asked me firmly, and I let out a sigh.

“I saw Prim,” I replied sadly. “She’s a field medic, and she’s setting up the medical tents, probably for when the casualties start pouring in...”

“Is she still angry with you?” Peeta asked me, and I shrugged.

“Don’t know. We were talking, and she smiled just a little at me, but she didn’t seem to want to touch me. She was upset thinking I didn’t need or want her around anymore because I have my brothers,” I told him. “I told her she’s going to be an aunt.” At that, Peeta smiled.

“I’m sure she liked to hear that,” he said.

“I hope so.” I let out a sigh. “How much time do we have?”

“About an hour, maybe. We should get some food in you, you’ll need your energy.” I let him drag me to the Mess Tent, where they were serving some kind of stew. We each got a bowl and sat down together at a table under the larger tent to eat.

“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” I said, taking his hand in mine. “We’ve been talking about it for what feels like years and now... now we’re finally putting the rebellion to rest.”

“And after that, we go home, raise little Lark or Donald... maybe give them a little brother or sister...” I smiled as his hand went to my stomach.

“We’ve got to deal with the Senate first,” I reminded him. “I don’t like politics. Once this is over, I don’t want to be on the Senate anymore.”

“Honey, we gotta stick with it at least for a bit... it’s up to us to rebuild the country,” Peeta replied, scooting his seat closer to me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

“We have to take it back and then rebuild it? Panem expects so much from us,” I said, leaning into his embrace, and he brought his lips to my forehead to kiss it.

“I know... One step at a time, all right? First, we’ve gotta take out the Capitol and Snow, and then we can worry about that.” I smiled and nodded, taking a spoonful of soup.

“Are you ready to create a new world?”

“Yeah, I am... A new world where we can be together by choice rather than by force, and a new world where we don’t have to fear our kids being sent to the arena. Are you?”

“I’m ready for a free future,” I replied.

Before we knew it, it was time to prepare to invade the Capitol. Our divisions each stood at their assigned entrances and Peeta took a headcount. “Carolina, Castor, Pollux, Cressida, Cailean, Calum - I didn’t realise how many C’s we had here - Gale, Graham, Donnel, Katniss, Peet- I’m obviously present - Finnick, Zeodary and Hadley. Everyone good and present?” There was an affirmative hum from the group. “Excellent, then we wait for orders.”

I was standing away from the group, closer to the entrance of the Capitol. The West Entrance was open, with a short tunnel that cut through the wall that kept the Capitol safe. The tunnel was originally for train tracks, but those had been destroyed. There were no Peacekeepers, as most of them were within the innermost part of the city protecting the citizens. All we had before us was Pods, but I had the Holo to help with that. Suddenly, I heard footsteps approach me, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up and met Peeta’s gorgeous blue eyes and I smiled. “This is it,” I told him.

“It is,” he replied. “We can do this, Katniss. We  _ will _ do this.” He pulled me into a tight embrace. “Katniss, if anything happens to me-”

“Don’t start with that, Peeta,” I told him, not wanting to hear him try to predict his death, and he sighed.

“Fine... You’ll read it all in the letter that Haymitch promised to give you in case I don’t get out of this,” he replied, and I pulled back from the embrace.

“Peeta!”

“I had to prepare for any scenario, Katniss. We don’t know what’s going to happen in there. We don’t know if there’s new Pods and we hardly even know what the damn things will do. Okay?” It was my turn to let out a sigh and I hugged him close to me again.

“Let’s not argue right now...” I felt his lips in my hair.

“No matter what happens, Katniss, I love you so much,” he muttered to me.

“I love you, too, Peeta,” I replied, and I pulled back from our embrace to take his face into my hands and kiss his lips. Suddenly, both of our communicuffs beeped and we glanced down at them, reading the message loud and clear. We exchanged a glance, and then looked back at our team.

“It’s time,” Peeta told them, and we began our march on the Capitol.


	20. Chapter XIX: The Siege Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Siege on the Capitol begins.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

I can’t say what I was expecting would meet us in the Capitol. It could have been anything, from mutts to explosives to fire to bullets, it could have been anything. Katniss was ahead of the group with the Holo scanning for unseen Pods, while I wasn’t too far behind. I mostly feared that the Holo wouldn’t detect a Pod and she would walk straight into it, being ripped away from me in an instant. The Holo beeped, signalling that there was indeed a Pod just up ahead, and I held up a hand to stop the unit behind me. My heart rate increased as my wife turned back to look at me. “What do you suggest we do, Commander?” she asked me with a wink.

“Uh...” I said. It wasn’t my first decision to make as a commander, but it was my first with Gale in my unit under me. Part of me felt he was judging me, but then I remembered that I shouldn’t care, considering I was the one married to Katniss and not him, and I was also above him. “Set it off?” I heard a snort behind me and I turned around to narrow my eyes at Gale, who looked highly amused. “Got any better ideas, Soldier?”

“No,” he said, losing his amused smile, and I turned back to face Katniss. She bent down to pick up a rock, then turned back to where the Pod was located and tossed it. Out of the ground came three very large buzzsaws that would have chopped us into hundreds of pieces had we walked straight through it, and after a minute, it stopped, and the three buzzsaws went limp. Thankfully, once the Pods were activated, they couldn’t be reactivated - a one time use.

“One down,” said Katniss, turning back to face us, “several hundred more to go.” So that became protocol. As we walked through the streets of the Capitol, we used the Holo to detect unseen Pods and set them off using rocks or other things that were throwable, and then we moved on. For each Pod that went off, Katniss marked it in the Holo so that we knew which ones were inactive. I could see on the map other marked off Pods from the other commanders at different parts of the city. After a couple of hours of setting off Pods and marking them off, Katniss stopped and took note of the street before us. “Might be a good place to rest.”

“But we just started,” said Gale, and Katniss turned to face him.

“If you want to continue without the Holo, then be my guest, but the rest of the unit is tired. We hardly had a break between arriving here and setting off, so we’ll take a break. Two hours, then continue on,” she said with confidence, and I smiled watching her shut Gale down with her leadership.

“I’ll scope out this shop here. It looks empty,” I said.

“Take Gale with you, he’s not tired,” Katniss said, and reluctantly, Gale followed me into the shop, both of our weapons poised and ready to attack if we had to.

“You should stop trying to undermine me,” I said to him. “I’m your commander. If you’re not happy about that, take it up with the Senate because they’re who decided this.”

“I voted against you and Katniss taking command of this unit,” Gale reminded me.

“Look, I know you hate my guts and want me dead because of her, but you need to get over your distaste of me or I’ll send you packing. I’m serious, Gale,” I said to him firmly. “I will not have you poisoning this unit with your bad attitude.”

“I’m sure Katniss would be upset with you. She wanted me on this unit.”

“Because you’re a good fighter, but you heard the attitude she gave you. You know damn well she’d have no problem with removing you from the unit if you don’t quit acting like you’re in control.”

“That’s not your decision to make anymore.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m under special orders, and I’m also under order to not tell you shit. So I can say what I like and you can’t do anything about it.”

“Think I’ll have to check on that.”

“Go ahead. Prove me right.” I didn’t want to believe this damn fool, but I got in contact with the members of the Senate that weren’t on the mission - Haymitch and Delly Cartwright were standing in for Katniss and I in representing Twelve and Thirteen had two stand-in representatives as well. Fourteen and Eight also had a stand-in representative, since Carolina and Paylor were both here at the Capitol. It turned out Gale did have special orders, and I narrowed my eyes at him as he smirked with satisfaction.

“I’ll find out what you’re up to,” I told him.

“Relax, he’s just pushing your buttons,” Katniss told me when I had relayed the conversation to her. We were inside the shop now, Gale and I having deemed it safe, and Katniss and I were in our own little corner trying to find a moment of peace together.

“He’s here on special orders, Katniss. I don’t trust him,” I replied.

“You never trusted him to begin with. You didn’t even want him on the team,” she replied.

“And for good reason, but you stepped over my head.”

“Peeta, it’ll be fine,” she said, sitting up and taking my hand, giving it a firm squeeze. “I have no idea what his special orders are, but I’m sure whatever the goals of his mission are line up with ours.”

“You still trust him,” I said with a hint of betrayal in my tone.

“Trust and love are two very different things,” she reminded me, detecting the tone in my voice. “I trust him, but I don’t love him. I trust you and I love you. See the difference?”

“I guess it’s hard to see it after all the history you two have together,” I confessed. I didn’t want her to know that even though we’ve been married for two years, even though I’m the man she chose to have the intimacy that we’ve shared together with and that I’m the one who fathered the baby she was growing inside of her, I still can’t shake the feelings of jealousy I get when I think of Gale and her.

“Peeta,” she said, her free hand moving to my face and brushing a piece of hair from my eye. “Why are you still jealous of him? Have I not done enough to show you that I have no interest in him? What will it take to prove that to you?”

“You have proven it to me, I just...” I let out a sigh. “I just don’t like him. I don’t like being around him. I don’t like the air he gives off. He always acts like he’s the best option for everything no matter what the topic is and he always acts like everyone else is incompetent. And I hate to say it, but I don’t feel completely safe around him. He...” I didn’t really want to say it, but her eyes egged me on. “Nevermind. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Peeta...”

“I could be dead in an hour, I’d rather spend that hour with you and not talking about him. Come here.” I took her hands and pulled her towards me and though she sighed, she complied, crawling into my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck. I kissed the top of her head and held her tightly against me, refusing to let go.

“You won’t be dead in an hour. I won’t let that happen,” she said.

“I know you won’t,” I told her. “Katniss, I’m tired of having this conversation. Let’s just settle on the fact that we’re not going to die and when this is all over, we go home, back to our normal lives, and we’ll live long and happy lives until we die of old age. All right?”

“But our lives will never be normal. I don’t think they ever were to begin with,” she replied. “Peeta, we lived in constant fear of the Capitol, waiting for the day when they decided they’d stop playing with us and kill us.”

“Loving you kept my life at least somewhat normal,” I confessed.

“I thought you said it was a crush,” she replied, teasing me gently, and I smiled down at her.

“It was a crush that blossomed into love,” I told her. “Loving you now keeps me sane. Loving you after the Games kept me sane, even if you didn’t return it.”

“You really didn’t try to turn to anyone else?” I shook my head.

“They weren’t you, so I wasn’t interested. Sure, there were girls who were interested in me. Delly being one of them, Madge Undersee... but I never looked twice at them. And I didn’t want to lure them into a false love where at night, I would pretend that they were you in my arms, instead of them. That wouldn’t have been fair.”

“What if I never confessed my feelings for you?”

“Then I would have spent the rest of my life alone, but loving you. It would have made dying in the arena that much easier,” I told her. It might have been stupid, yes, and immature, but it was the truth. I didn’t want anyone else if I couldn’t have Katniss.

“Oh, Peeta, that’s such an awful thing to say.”

“But it’s the truth. I would rather be alone than have someone that isn’t you.”

“Then it’s a good thing I confessed my feelings. I almost didn’t, I was too afraid to. Afraid of what you’d think... I didn’t know if your feelings were genuine or not and I was afraid you’d laugh at me, but then I thought I was dying anyway so I might as well have told you right then and there. It seemed like it didn’t matter, and holding it back was pointless.”

“You have no idea how happy I was when I heard you utter those words for the first time. I still feel the same every time I hear them.”

“Oh, do you?” she asked with a smile, and I nodded. “Well, I love you, Peeta Mellark. I love you even though you drive me up the bloody wall sometimes and I love you even though you’re the most overdramatic, jumping-to-conclusions type of man I know. I love you when you’re ridiculously overprotective of me and piss me off, and I love you when you’re sweet, tender and gentle. I love you for the little things you do, like picking out something for me to wear and laying it out on the chair or the bed and making sure my shoelaces are double-knotted.” I smiled as she listed the reasons why she loved me, chuckling at the mention of the shoelaces. “I love you for how you see me for who I really am and still love me anyway. I love you for how you always know when I’m not being completely honest or how you know when I’m holding something back - I don’t know how you know, but you know, and no one else is that observant of me. And I love you for how you still loved me even when I didn’t return it.” She lowered her voice a little. “I love you for how you know what drives me insane in bed.” I couldn’t help but chuckle, feeling the heat in my cheeks of a gentle blush.

“Katniss...” I muttered, and I opened my mouth to reply, but Gale’s obnoxious voice cut through the room.

“Since the commanders clearly aren’t paying attention, I’ll bring our attention to the fact that two hours are up and we need to get moving,” he said rather rudely, and I clenched my teeth to keep from saying something bitter right back.

“I hate him,” I muttered quietly to Katniss, who laughed, kissed my cheek and climbed off of my lap.

“Very well then,” she said. “On we go. Peeta, you take the Holo.” She handed me the little device as I stood up and walked up behind her.

“Then we’re moving on,” I said, and we did.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

_ It was in the cave when I first realised that I might actually have feelings for the boy with the bread. It was after the announcement of the feast, where Peeta’s much needed medicine would be, that I realised I wanted him to live so badly, that I realised that I didn’t want to live in a world that didn’t have Peeta Mellark in it. “Katniss, no, you’re not risking your life for me,” he hissed, grabbing me as I tried to leave his side to go to the feast. _

_ “You’d do it for me,” I hissed right back. He didn’t loosen his grip, only tightened it, and stared straight into my eyes with what I realised were very beautiful blue eyes. _

_ “Why are you doing this?” he whispered, and I felt my heart thumping very quickly as I realised what I was going to do. I didn’t have to do it. The thing Peeta needed was already out there waiting for me, but I felt the urge to do it. It wouldn’t be for the Capitol, it would be for me - I just had to know. I dropped my bow and I reached down to catch his head with my hand, dragging myself down to him on the ground and furiously pressed my lips to his. I’d never kissed anyone before, especially not a boy, but I couldn’t help myself from deepening the kiss more and more with every passing second. I hadn’t wanted to hurt Gale - I knew he cared for me, but after what happened with Auburn, I couldn’t feel the same way towards him - actually, I wasn’t even thinking of Gale while I was kissing Peeta, only after. I didn’t want to be the one that broke the kiss between myself and Peeta so I didn’t. I clung to him and kissed him, my tongue sliding into his mouth and mingling with his, and I could feel him groaning into it. He was the one that had to break it, reminding me that we weren’t safe in District Twelve, we were in the arena. He met my eyes, his hand still buried in my hair and mine still cupping his face. “Now I’m definitely not letting you go.” _

_ “Yes the hell you are,” I told him, pulling myself from his weakened grip and fighting the urge to kiss him again. He grabbed my shoe with both hands. _

_ “Katniss, no! I’m not letting you go! You’re not dying for me!” he shouted, and I pulled my foot free as he held on tightly to the shoe, not letting it go as I stood on the other side of the cave in one shoe and one stockinged foot. _

_ “Peeta, I don’t know if it’s escaped your notice or not, but I don’t care that you don’t want me to risk my life for you because I’m going to no matter what. I already have, and I’ll do it again a hundred times over if I have to,” I hissed at him, and I returned to his side, dropped back onto my knees, took his face in my hands and kissed him again. Who the hell was this person who lived within me and wanted Peeta? “I want a lifetime of this, and I can’t have that if you won’t let me go and get your medicine. So either you let me go with both of my shoes or I’ll go wearing only one. Do you understand me?” He was silent as he contemplated my words. I didn’t realise how much I made it sound like I was deeply in love with him until the words were already spoken, and I couldn’t take them back. He nodded gently, then returned my shoe to me. _

_ “Kiss me again, before you go... just one more time,” he said as I slipped the shoe on. I didn’t want to, but the part of me that did took over my body. The Katniss that I didn’t realise I wanted to be nodded gently, then she leaned over his body and tenderly took his face into her hands, pressing her lips to his and kissing him deeply with the love for him that I had buried deep inside of me. Peeta had to be the one to break the kiss again, and he ran a hand through my chocolate brown hair as I looked into his beautiful, handsome face. “Come back to me,” he whispered. _

_ “Always,” I told him, and off I went to collect his medicine. _

* * *

Peeta wasn’t the same frail boy that he once was in that cave, he was a strong, sturdy, confident man who led a unit through the minefield of the Capitol fearlessly. He set off Pods using rocks that he had collected along the way and commanded us through each and every trap safely, ensuring that no one would die on his watch. Watching him made my heart throb and I ached for his lips on mine, for his touch against my skin, for his love inside of me. He said something to the unit, but I didn’t hear what it was, as I was too focused on him to think clearly, and when he approached me, his words finally became clear. “Keep the staring to a minimum and focus, why don’t you?” he said in a teasing tone, and I smiled and blushed slightly, not even realising that I had been staring at him.

“Can’t help it,” I replied. “You should see yourself from my angle.”

“This looks as good a spot as any for a great propo,” said Cressida, standing ten feet behind two very large columns and holding up her hands as if to form a picture frame.

“Is that really our focus right now?” asked Cailean, wiping a bit of sweat off of his face. We were all dressed in black clothing and were very warm.

“Propos help build morale and win the war,” said Cressida.

“There’s a Pod between the two columns,” said Peeta, checking the Holo.

“Fire an arrow at it, Katniss,” said Cressida, setting up Castor and Pollux behind me. With a sigh and my back to the camera, I pulled out my little cylinder and pressed the button on it, activating the bow - the quiver had already been activated - and pulled out a regular black-tipped arrow, then drew it back and fired it between the two columns while Peeta stood beside me and watched, and the Pod was activated, two streams of fire shooting out from the top of the columns and going out in a matter of moments. “Yes! That was on fire!”

“In more ways than one,” I muttered to Peeta, who chuckled gently. We passed through the column and entered a rather large courtyard, which almost looked like an arena itself.

“Scope it out, see if there’s anything here,” Peeta said, checking the Holo. “There’s a Pod in the center of the courtyard so watch out for it.” Calum, Zeodary Sage and Graham Leper made their way away from the entrance and into the courtyard. All seemed to be going well, until Graham stepped on a square and triggered a large explosion. All of us were blown back and hit the ground as the explosion went off, deafened by the blast. I was dazed, then sat up and saw Peeta screaming at me about something, but I couldn’t hear him. I shook my head a bit, and his words became more clear. “KATNISS, RUN!” he was shouting, and he pulled me to stand and then picked me up, throwing me over his shoulder. Behind him, I could see Calum, Hadley and Finnick running in the same direction we were and behind them was a huge black sludge following closely behind. The courtyard had somehow closed itself in and we were now in a large bowl that was filling quickly and we had to get out of there.

Zeodary activated the Pod by mistake in his panic to get away from the sludge and he was captured in a net and suspended in the air, and the scratches on his skin told me that it was made of barbed wire. This left just myself, Calum, Cailean, Carolina, Gale, Hadley, Peeta, Cressida, Donnel, Castor and Pollux as we ran towards a building that Gale had blasted the door open to. Donnel had slung Graham over his shoulder and was carrying him, but I could see once we were inside and on the ground of an upper floor that he was bleeding out quickly from the two stumps that used to be his legs. Once I was free of Peeta’s grip, I raced to Graham’s side and tried my best to stop the bleeding, but it was no use. We couldn’t get him back to the base camp in time, and we knew that with such a big trap, Peacekeepers were likely coming. I glance around at everyone around me. We’ve all been worse for wear before, but we did look rather beaten up. Dirtied and bleeding from the explosion, most everyone was okay, with the exception of Graham, who now lay dead before me in a puddle of blood, and Hadley, who had a very large gash on her leg that Carolina was trying to assist with by tying a tourniquet around her leg. “Katniss, I need your help,” she said to me, and I nodded as I moved to Hadley’s side and tried to help her.

“It’s pointless,” Hadley said, and I took her face in my hands.

“No it’s not. You’ll be okay,” I told her, but she shook her head.

“I can’t walk, I’m no use to the unit and you can’t get me back to the camp,” she replied. Hadley was a sweet young girl who was easily my age, if not a little bit older, with short brown curls who hailed from District Thirteen. We met shortly before I learned that she would be under my command on the mission to rally the districts two years ago now, and I remember being impressed by her enthusiasm.

“We have plenty of strong men who can carry you,” I told her, and she shook her head.

“Don't waste time,” she replied. I patched her up anyway, even though I knew the poor girl was dying, and Gale glanced out the window.

“The sludge has stopped,” he said. It covered the courtyard and up to eight feet up on the buildings, just enough to look as if it had drowned us. In the middle of the courtyard, I could see Zeodary trapped in the barbed wire, dead and black from the sludge.

“Maybe if we’re lucky, it’ll have set off some Pods,” I said.

“We can’t stay, we’ve gotta go,” said Peeta. “There’s something popping up on the Holo. Peacekeepers.”

“Then we’d better go. Hadley?” said Gale, turning to Hadley, and she shook her head.

“I’ll stay here, ward them off. Make them think that we’re still here while you all run off,” she replied.

“You don’t have to do that, Hadley,” said Cailean somewhat sadly, and she smiled at him and raised a hand to his face.

“Go,” she said. While everyone else started down the stairs, I paused to wait for Cailean, who bent down to kiss Hadley on the lips one final time, and then he followed without a word. The sludge thankfully didn’t make any footprints so we were able to escape safely, but we still had to be on the lookout for Pods. As we walked through the streets on the sludge, we saw several Pods that had been activated, but when we reached the end of it, we knew that there were still many, many more Pods up ahead. I felt a dull ache in my left upper arm as I looked around, and then we all froze when we heard first the sound of gunshots, and then a rather large explosion.

“We need to go,” said Peeta. “Get somewhere safe and hide out for the night.” I realised then that the sun was setting, and he was right. Gale broke us into a fancy Capitol home and we made ourselves comfortable on the couch while Castor started raiding the cabinets and tapping on the walls, then found an empty pocket and peeled back a panel to reveal a stash of food.

“It’s an old Capitol superstition. Maybe even a fear, from the Dark Days of the first war. Everyone was starving back then, districts and Capitol. Ever since, people in the Capitol keep a stash of food hidden in their homes, even though it’s illegal,” Castor explained as he brought over several cans of food to us at the table.

“That’s amazing!” said Calum excitedly, grabbing a can and looking at it, then grimacing. “Maybe not so amazing...”

“It’s only fish!” said Carolina, who was attached to his arm. “Don’t you like fish? You’re from an island.”

“I always hated the smell and the taste of it, and I was glad I didn’t have to eat it all the time when we got to Thirteen,” Calum admitted, resulting in a laugh from Carolina and a kiss on her cheek from Calum. Cailean appeared somewhat sad and stood in the corner against the wall, not wanting to be near anyone. I was about to ask if he was all right when I felt a sharp pain in my arm and when I looked over, I saw Peeta with his fingers on my arm.

“Katniss, you’re injured,” he said, and I noticed the blood on his fingers.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him.

“Give me your medic pack,” he replied, and I complied, letting him clean up the wound. I had been scratched by a sharp piece of metal and it required stitches, and at first I passed him the liquid stitches, but he set those aside and pulled out medical grade thread and a needle.

“Peeta, you can’t do stitches,” I told him, but he waved me off and stuck me with a jab of morphling to cut the pain, then started working on the wound. “Where did you learn to do this?”

“Watching you, the day the medical ship from Five came to Fourteen,” he told me, not removing his eyes from his work. It wasn’t a large cut so he was able to finish it rather quickly, and then he made me remove my jacket so he could bandage it.

“Thank you,” I said to him, and he gave me a gentle reassuring smile and took my hand, giving it a squeeze, and then he turned my hand over and ironed out my palm with his hand, placing a can of lamb stew in my hand. I smiled at him, then took hold of the front of his jacket and dragged him to me to kiss him.

We were startled by the holographic television that began to project over the table before us, and a message from President Snow began to play. “It is with great pleasure that I can report the deaths of the rebels on the west side of the Capitol. The Mockingjay is dead, but there are still dangers all around us. The rebels continue to push forward, but the Capitol will resist. We will overcome this travesty together. We will provide food and medicine for any refugees coming from the outermost parts of the city and I encourage citizens of the inner city to open their doors to their fellow citizens. In the meantime, have no fear. The rebel forces will be defeated and the Capitol will come out on top.” The image of Snow faded and was replaced by pictures of our faces on the screen, honouring us the same way we would have been honoured had we died in the arena with the Capitol anthem playing behind it.

Cressida Dubrow, Capitol.

Castor Chatham, Capitol.

Pollux Chatham, Capitol.

Finnick Odair, District Four. (I saw him smile and chuckle to himself).

Graham Leper, District Nine.

Gale Hawthorne, District Twelve.

Donnel Mellark, District Twelve.

Katniss Mellark, District Twelve. (Snow was one of few people to respect me by calling me by the correct name).

Peeta Mellark, District Twelve. (I gripped Peeta’s hand tightly, and he gave it a squeeze).

Carolina Abernathy, District Thirteen. (“Fourteen,” she hissed).

Cailean Fòlais, District Thirteen.

Calum Fòlais, District Thirteen.

Zeodary Sage, District Thirteen.

Hadley Walker, District Thirteen.

The screen went dark, and we all sat in silence for a moment, contemplating what had just happened. The Capitol thought we were dead. Snow thought we were dead. We had the advantage of being invisible to the Capitol, so long as we were careful to maintain it. If they went through the rubble tomorrow, they might find that we actually aren’t dead, but until then, we were invisible. “We’re ghosts, I said, addressing the unit. “Disappeared right in our own tracks.” They all looked at me, somewhat melancholy, somewhat tired. “We need to take advantage of that. Rest up while you can, we’ll leave in the dead of night.”


	21. Chapter XX: When The Young Go To War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Siege of the Capitol continues. The unit experiences heavy losses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gruesome depictions of violence. Major character deaths.

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

We stayed for a few hours. It was maybe eight at night when we arrived, so some members of the unit slept while some of us stayed awake. I made Katniss rest a little bit, wrapping my arm around her shoulders as she rested her head on mine, and I glanced over at Cailean, who still stood in the corner and remained silent. “You okay?” I asked him. “Cailean?” He looked at me, sadness dancing in his eyes, then gently shook his head and stared back out the window. Around us, Calum and Carolina were fast asleep in each other’s arms. Gale was awake, although he feigned sleep. Castor and Pollux were dozing off in the corner while Cressida was going through footage that she had filmed that day. Finnick was scribbling away on a piece of paper furiously. Donnel was passed out in the corner snoring away.

“I’ve been in love with Hadley Walker since I was eight years old,” Cailean said suddenly to me, and I turned my attention back to him. “When we were older, I pursued her, but she was never interested in me. Or at least, she said she never was. On the mission, things changed. We grew closer, and we weren’t a couple but we were on the verge of it. Now I’ll never know what we could have been.”

“I’m very sorry, Cailean,” I told him, and he shrugged.

“That’s war, isn’t it? Loss. If it’s not your home or everything that you are, it’s a loved one. People die everyday. Guess I should get used to it,” he replied.

“Wars lead to great things,” Gale interjected, proving that he was never asleep to begin with. “Victory, freedom, democracy... We’ll have all those things when it’s over.” I saw Cailean narrow his eyes at him. In Thirteen, Cailean never liked Gale. Calum got along with him more than Cailean did, but Cailean disliked the man, and for good reason. He didn’t like how he once yelled at Katniss for being ‘stupid and reckless’ in a mission, and he also just didn’t like the man’s values. Like Katniss, Cailean was a dove, while Gale was a warbird.

“But I won’t have  _ her _ ,” he hissed at Gale, and he turned back to the window.

“Love is an illusion, I’ve learned,” said Gale, looking at myself and Katniss, who was deeply asleep in my arms.

“She didn’t love you,” I told him.

“How would you know? Your relationship with her started out false. You never knew her before the reaping.”

“That’s not true, either. She used to come to the bakery before attending a birth.”

“To see you?”

“No, but I was always there, and she always smiled at me.”

“A smile doesn’t mean she’s in love.”

“I never said she was in love with me, but we did know each other before the Games.” Gale let out a laugh.

“You have no idea how angry and betrayed I felt when I saw her kiss you in the arena like that. She’d never kissed me like that before. Even if it was for the cameras, I could see that something drove her to kiss you like that, and it wasn’t the desire to live.”

“How do you kiss Johanna?” He was silent for a moment.

“We cling to each other, both of us having lost so much. My family survived the bombing of Twelve, but they didn’t survive the bombing of Thirteen. Snow killed her entire family for how she acted in the Games. He also brought you and her together through the Games and forced you to into a relationship. By that logic, Snow took away everything that Johanna and I had ever loved.”

“So your hatred of Snow brings you both together?” I was startled by Katniss’s voice emanating from beneath my arm and she picked up her head to look at him. “What’ll you both do when Snow is dead?”

“Katniss, go back to sleep, you need to rest,” I told her, my free hand jumping to her face, but she didn’t look at me. Instead, she was looking at Gale.

“Well?” she asked him, expecting an answer.

“Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” he said, and he looked away, signalling that he was done with the conversation. I turned my attention back to Katniss.

“Katniss, please go back to sleep,” I told her, but she waved my hand away.

“Peeta, stop,” she said, sitting up and pulling herself from my arms, and she let out a sigh when she saw the sting in my eyes. “It’s your turn to rest... You should sleep, too.”

“I won’t be able to sleep until I know you’re safe, and that won’t happen until we’ve won the rebellion,” I told her.

“At least try,” she begged me, and I nodded gently.

“Come here, then,” I whispered, and she crawled back into my arms and I held her tightly, closing my eyes. I felt her kiss my chin and she started to whisper a song to me.

_ Deep in the meadow, under the willow _

_ A bed of grass, a soft green pillow _

_ Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes _

_ And when again they open, the sun will rise. _

I smiled as she sang the Valley Song to me, the first song I heard her sing and the song that made me fall in love with her for the first time. Well, develop a crush on her that led to being in love with her.

_ Here it’s safe, here it’s warm, _

_ Here the daisies guard you from every harm. _

_ Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true, _

_ Here is the place where I love you... _

I must have fallen asleep before she sang the second verse. It was a sweet sleep, and I dreamed that we were in the meadow again in District Twelve, the two of us lying on our backs in the warm sun. She was wearing an orange sundress, and I was wearing a pale green shirt and khaki pants. We lay there in the meadow and above us, a Capitol hovercraft suddenly appeared, and I began to fear it. I held Katniss tightly in my arms and then we watched as it... as it... turned into a cloud of butterflies? A cloud of monarch butterflies, richly orange and black as they fluttered about and let the sun’s rays in. As quickly as the dream began, I felt it end, and I felt myself being shaken awake as I heard my name being called.  _ “Peeta... Peeta, wake up...” _

I opened my eyes and was met by Katniss’s beautiful grey ones, and I realised that we weren’t in the meadow. Instead, we were inside of a Capitol home, ostentatious and large, unlike the homes of District Twelve. “Peeta, it’s time to go,  _ mo ghaol _ ,” she said to me. I checked my communicuff for the time - it was shortly after two in the morning.

“How long was I asleep?” I asked her.

“Couple of hours,” she replied. “Come on, love.” We made our move, slipping out of the Capitol home and stepping out into the night.

“We can’t stay above ground, the cameras will see us,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“We can go below,” said Castor suddenly, and he glanced at his brother, Pollux - a former Capitol avox who had had his tongue removed, so he didn’t speak. Before we knew it, we found ourselves underground navigating the underground tunnels of the Capitol’s travel system. Buses, vehicles and trains all ran down here, but there were still cameras, so we had to go even lower. Pollux stopped at a door, and he looked at Castor with a frightened expression.

“What’s the matter?” asked Katniss.

“He used to work down there, when he was enslaved by the Capitol,” said Castor. “I spent five years working to get him out.” He gave his brother a tight hug. “It’ll be okay...” He then turned back to us. “Pollux knows the underground systems better than anyone else. He’ll get us to Snow’s mansion.” Everyone started climbing down the ladder, and all that remained at the top was myself and Finnick.

“After you?” I asked him. He nodded, then pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me.

“Give this to her, in case I don’t make it back. To Annie,” he said, and I put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll get you back to her. Katniss and I both made a promise to her that we’d get you back to her,” I told him. He gave me a subtle smile, as if he somewhat disbelieved me, and then he pulled me into a tight hug.

“You’ve been a good friend, both of you,” he said, then he broke the hug, touched my shoulder and then climbed down after the others. The tunnels were musky, wet and dark, and we could hardly see a thing. Katniss pulled out the Holo and searched for Pods, but the only Pods were above our heads. The Capitol must not have accounted for the rebels going underneath the city. I heard Finnick let out a chuckle. “I always hoped I’d die in the water,” he said.

“Who said you’re going to die?” Katniss asked him playfully. We moved on, stepping through water, walking along platforms, checking the Holo to map out our location. We were several blocks from the Capitol still, but we made our way through the maze of tunnels, eventually pausing for a rest. “Any good material to film down here?” Katniss jokingly asked Cressida, who smiled.

“The lighting’s terrible,” she said back. I looked around at the crowd before me. Castor and Pollux were signing things to each other, while Calum and Carolina were snuggling up and trying to sleep. Cailean wasn’t sleeping, but instead looked distant and sad, while Katniss was seated across from me looking at the Holo. Finnick was trying to sleep, and Gale was standing and conversing with Donnel, who was nodding along to the conversation. Donnel resembled me only slightly, resembling our mother more. I was the spitting image of my father when he was my age, or so I had been told. Like our mother, Donnel had green eyes, while I had my father’s blue. We were both blonde and well-built, with wide shoulders and toned muscles from years of tossing around heavy bags of flour and years of wrestling both in school and as brothers. I felt a tap on my foot and I looked at Katniss, who was smiling at me, and I returned her smile.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked me.

“The past,” I replied. “My family... How everyone always told me I looked just like my father.”

“You do,” she replied. “He was a handsome man, and he made a handsome son.” I chuckled gently. Suddenly, she turned towards a small tunnel that spilled water down into the tunnels beneath us. “Did you hear that?” I looked towards the tunnel that she was referring to, hearing nothing.

“I just hear water,” I told her. “What do you hear?”

“Hissing,” she replied.

“Hissing?” I repeated, and I tried to listen for the sounds that she was talking about and through the sound of the water, sure enough, I heard the sound of hissing. “It might be steam in the pipes.”

“It’s getting louder,” she replied again, and she was right - it  _ was _ getting louder.

“Something’s not right...” I muttered.

“We need to get out of here,” she said, and then she looked to the unit and stood up. “We need to move on.”

“But it’s not been long enough-” Gale began to protest, but I cut him off.

“You heard her. Let’s go,” I said firmly. Pollux led us down a series of tunnels, but then everyone froze as the hissing became louder and clear to us that something terrifying had been searching for us, and possibly found us. Katniss pulled a yellow-tipped arrow out of her quiver and activated her bow. The tip of the arrow, upon connecting to the bow, lit up in flames and she launched it in the direction of the hissing, lighting up the dark tunnel.

There, crawling on the walls and easily scores more than we had in our unit, were very large, skin-coloured lizard-like humanoid creatures with sharp claws and large, sharp teeth. And they were crawling right towards us.

“MUTTS!” I shouted loudly. “GO! RUN!” We ran in the opposite direction of the mutts, following the tunnels, and the faster we ran, the faster they crawled in the pipes. We leapt out of the tunnel and into a large basin that was filled with water as the lizard mutts came at us from all directions. What happened was entirely a blur as I shot at mutts, but every time I killed one, two more took its place. I saw one jump at Katniss and I shot it down in midair, but she was too busy firing arrows at the creatures to even notice the mutt that had nearly attacked her. I heard screams and cries of pain, anguish, anger and more. I heard roaring, hissing, water splashing all about, the sound of Finnick’s trident sinking into the body of one of the mutts, the sounds of Katniss’s bow throwing arrows all around.

“GO! CLIMB OUT!” I heard a voice shout. I looked towards the source and found myself being shoved under the water, but the pressure was lifted and I was pulled back up and met Finnick’s fearful eyes as he freed his trident from the body of another mutt.

“Go! Get out, Peeta!” he shouted at me. Katniss. Where was Katniss? Not just Katniss now - Katniss and Lark, or Donald. Katniss and our baby. I had to get her out.

“Peeta!” I heard her voice, and I looked up and saw her standing near a ladder. I watched her fire arrows at more mutts as we fought our way to the ladder. Some members of the group had already climbed and were at the uncovered manhole above raining bullets down on the mutts, but there were just too many.

“Katniss, go! I’m right behind you!” I shouted at her, grabbing her and pushing her towards the ladder. She started to climb, and I was right behind her. I felt teeth sink into my calf and with my other foot, I kicked the mutt in the face and it fell to the ground. I continued to climb, finally making it out of the manhole. Right behind me had been Calum, who was covered in blood and looked very weak. I grabbed him by the wrists and hauled him through the manhole, laying him down on the ground as Carolina and Cailean ran to his side. There was more person that needed to get out.

“Finnick!” cried Katniss, but it was too late for Finnick. Katniss and I both let out a scream as we watched Finnick become overwhelmed by the mutts, and I felt my hands jump to my mouth when I witnessed the mutt that killed him completely decapitate him with its teeth. Everything went silent around me and it seemed as if everything moved in slow motion, and beside me, I watched Katniss as she pulled out the Holo. “Nightlock, nightlock, nightlock,” she mouthed, and she must have said the words but I didn’t hear them. I saw her drop the Holo and it exploded, killing off whatever mutts remained that were devouring Finnick’s body.

I sat motionless with my hands over my mouth, unable to take my eyes off of the manhole that Katniss now dragged over the hole, locking away the horrors that lay beneath it. I’ve seen people die before, even killed people. I’d lost men before under my command. But never like this. Never like what happened to Finnick. I will never be able to forget the fear in his eyes as the mutt ripped his head off, nor will I ever forget the river of deep red blood that came rushing out of the wound. Suddenly, I realised exactly why Annie Cresta had gone insane upon seeing her district partner being decapitated - it was one of the most gruesome deaths to witness. Annie... How could I tell Annie? As Finnick’s Commander, it was my duty to inform her, but how could I? How could I face her after promising her that I would keep him safe and bring him back to her? Instead, all I had was the piece of folded paper that Finnick had given me what feels like decades ago but had only been a few hours.

As the moment passed, I could hear the sounds returning again. “Calum... Calum, stay with me. Calum!” I heard a voice say in a distinct Hebridean accent.

“ _ Fuirichidh tu còmhla rium, _ ” I heard a male voice say. “ _ Chan eil thu a’ dol a bhàsachadh orm. A Chaluim, tha thu a’ dol a dh’ fhuireach. _ ” I couldn’t understand a word of it.

“Oh, Calum,” I heard a third voice say through tears, and I brought my head to look up at the mournful scene before me. Calum has been attacked on his neck and he was bleeding out, and there was nothing that we could do to save him. I raised myself from my shock and crawled over to him, and his one blue eye and his one brown eye looked at me not with fear, but with acceptance.

“Take care of her,” he told me. “Of them...” I knew what he meant. Katniss’s brothers could read her like a book. They probably knew she was expecting. I gave him a gentle nod, not wanting to watch my brother-in-law’s final moments but refusing to rip myself away. He looked to Carolina. “I love you... C-Carolina...”

“Calum, stop, you’re going to live,” she begged him, but he gave a bemused smile.

“I know when I’m beat,” he said. Calum always looked at the bright side of things no matter what. He then looked at his twin brother, the mirror image of himself. “Take care of yourself... and each other...” I could see a tear escape his eye as his brother gripped his shirt with desperation. “ _ Fada beò Hebridia, ey?”  _ I saw Cailean give a forced smile. Calum then looked at Katniss, who was trying so desperately to stop the bleeding in her little brother’s neck. “Be strong,” he whispered to her weakly. He was pale and getting weaker by the second, but Calum was surrounded by those who loved him most, and by those he loved most.

“Have a look at what makes you happy... the beauty of life and the love you hold...” I said to him in an effort to comfort him in his last moments, the same way that I had for the female morphling from Six when she had been attacked by the monkey mutts. He gazed up into the brilliant grey eyes of Carolina and he smiled, and she smiled back. Carolina bent down, pressing her lips to his one final time as the light left his eyes, and his hand went limp. Carolina wept as she draped herself over Calum’s lifeless form as Cailean sat up, refusing to cry, and wearing a firm and angry expression on his face. First, the girl he’d been in love with since he was a child, and now his lifelong best friend and brother, gone in under twenty-four hours.

“We can’t stay,” I heard Gale mutter sadly and with force. I could tell he didn’t want to break up the moment, but he was right, we couldn’t stay. I glanced around at the group and noticed that someone else was missing - Castor. Cressida was comforting Pollux as he silently sobbed for the loss of his brother.

“No! I won’t leave him!” Carolina shouted, her hands gripping Calum’s shirt firmly, and Cailean put his hand over hers.

“We have to go,” he muttered quietly. “For him. He wouldn’t want you to say.” We weren’t out of the clear yet. As we ran from the manhole, we were faced with more terrifying traps meant to kill us. Snow knew we were alive, and Snow knew we were coming for him. The floor beneath us erupted into angry metal teeth intended to tear us to shreds and fireballs rained from some place we just couldn’t find, but we ran and we ran. A fireball grazed my leg, the same that had been attacked by the mutt, and I collapsed on the ground. Katniss stopped and ran back to me.

“Peeta!” she cried, trying to pull me up, but it hurt too much to stand.

“Katniss, no! Go! Leave me!” I shouted at her.

“I’m not leaving you! Peeta!” she cried back. She tried to lift me, but I knew she couldn’t carry me.

“Katniss, please go! I love you!” I shouted, unsure if these were my last moments, but I felt myself being picked up and thrown over someone’s shoulder.

“We’re not losing anyone else today!” I heard Gale say. He must have been the one to pick me up and carry me. I definitely wasn’t very light, so either he was really strong on his own or from the adrenaline of escaping death. We got out of the underground travel system and we ran for cover, no longer having the Holo to protect us from unseen Pods.

“In here!” I heard Donnel exclaim, and he kicked open a door to a shop and we piled inside, Gale setting me down on the ground as Katniss fumbled with her medic pack to tend to my leg. I looked around, noticing that we were in some kind of clothing store, and in the corner was a very strange figure with a big bushy wig and very cat-like features. Everyone in the shop froze as we watched the figure approach us, and Katniss stood.

“Tigris,” said Donnel. “You remember Plutarch, surely... We’re with the rebellion.” She nodded.

“We’re going to kill Snow,” said Katniss suddenly. She looked calm, but in her eyes, I could see the fires of anger boiling in her eyes. This was my girl on fire, the angry woman who was tired of the death and destruction that Snow has brought on Panem and its people for so long. This was the woman who had had enough. The woman called Tigris smiled.

“Right this way,” the cat lady purred, and she led us to a dressing room with a rug. Underneath the rug was a door that led to a staircase down into a storage area, and we knew that Tigris was going to hide us from Snow. I was assisted down, and for just a little while, we were safe.

But Finnick wasn’t, and neither was Calum. Nor were Hadley, Zeodary, Castor and Graham, or all of the men and women who gave their lives for the freedom of Panem, the freedom that we demanded and would take. We were beaten down, demoralised, hunted, wounded, hungry, cold and hot, dirty from the sewage and tired from the lack of rest. But we were alive, and the deaths of those who gave their lives to save ours, and to save Panem, will not have been in vain.


	22. Chapter XXI: Smoke and Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Siege on the Capitol continues as the unit approaches Snow’s mansion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major character death.

* * *

**KATNISS POV**

* * *

_ I watched him sometimes, that boy with the bread. My fellow victor in the 74th Annual Hunger Games. The boy that I found myself thinking more and more about with each passing day. I would watch him work in his yard, planting flowers and laying rocks for his pathways. On the hottest of days, he took off his shirt, and I won’t go into detail about how that made me feel. At night, I lay in bed wondering what my life would be like if I allowed myself to love Peeta Mellark. I could kiss his sweet, soft, tender lips and be held in his strong, firm, muscular arms. He would whisper sweet nothings into my ear and bake me cheese buns in the morning. At first, I didn’t want to allow myself to imagine what it would be like to make love to Peeta Mellark, but soon, I found that I just couldn’t keep the thoughts away. _

_ I smiled to myself late one night - tomorrow, I was going to kiss Peeta Mellark, for real. No cameras, no Capitol, no people forcing us together. I wanted to kiss him for real, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t want to love him. I didn’t want to kiss him or touch him or even be near him, but the part inside of me that did was starting to take control. “Tell yourself,” said my inner voice, the Katniss that loved Peeta. “Tell yourself that you love him. Tell him that you love him.” _

_ “I don’t love him,” I would say back to myself. “I don’t love him, I’ll never love him. That ‘love’ that you’re detecting is not real love, it was a desire to survive.” _

_ But perhaps it was. Perhaps, deep inside, it was never about surviving. I’d always liked to live in the moment and not think about my future, but suddenly, I couldn’t picture my future without Peeta Mellark. I wanted to go to bed wrapped up in his arms and wake up tangled in them once more, losing my hands in his hair and my gaze in his. No, I didn’t want that. Why would I ever want that? Why would I love a boy that the Capitol was forcing me to be with? I didn’t want to fall in love. I didn’t want to marry or have children or any of that. Not with the Games constantly looming over my head. I wasn’t going to kiss him tomorrow. Nope. _

_ And then I saw him. He looked so strong and so handsome while he bent over his flowers. I wanted to throw my arms around that handsome, toned, sweaty body and kiss the face that belonged to it. The moment I saw him, I realised that like him when we were children, I was gone. So I made the first steps. From the window to the stairs, down the stairs and to the door. I opened the door and was about to call his name when I saw Madge Undersee, the mayor’s daughter, joining him in his yard. They were smiling and laughing about something, but I didn’t stay long enough to find out what. I quickly darted back into my house and closed the door, leaning my back against it to keep it closed, but I knew he wasn’t going to follow me. I wanted to be angry and I wanted to hate him, but I knew I couldn’t. And why couldn’t I? _

_ Because I was starting down the long path of falling in love with Peeta Mellark. _

* * *

I tended to Peeta’s wounds as soon as we were safe in the storage room beneath Tigris’s shop. I was numb to everything, as if I had morphling coursing through my veins, but I knew that I was completely awake. I’d just watched one of my dearest friends die a gruesome death, and I lost my brother all over again. My heart sank at the thought that I’d never see Finnick’s charming smile or hear his playful tone of voice ever again, nor would I hold my much beloved brother in an embrace again and I would never see that blue left eye and that brown right eye again. And neither would Cailean, Calum’s twin. Not unless he looked in a mirror. And poor Annie and Carolina, never to hear the laughs of their beloveds again. Annie’s children would never see their father again, would never hug him again, would never be held by him again. Finnick’s little girl would never know her father, and Killick’s memories of his father would fade as he grew up.

“You should have left me,” I heard Peeta say, jolting me from thought, and I shook my head. Peeta was still alive. My Peeta, who promised me he would stay alive for me, who I promised I would stay alive for, whose child I carried within me.

“No,” I said. “I’m glad I didn’t.”

“You promised me that you’d live,” he told me, a firmness settling in his voice.

“You promised me that we’d  _ both _ live,” I spat back at him. The burns were worse than the bite on his leg, but I was able to treat them using the salve that Cailean and I developed in the lab back in Fourteen. “It doesn’t matter now. We both survived, and we’re both here now, now shut up and let me treat your leg.” He didn’t say another word, only sat there obediently giving the occasional hiss of a grimace of pain. When I’d finished bandaging him up, I sat up and looked at the rest of our party.

Cressida was comforting Pollux, who had just lost his brother. They appeared uninjured and unharmed, but I would have to check with them anyway. Donnel was fine, just cleaning off his knife from the blood of the mutts. Carolina was in tears, and Cailean sat beside her gently rubbing her back. Carolina had blood all over her hands and wrists, but I knew it wasn’t hers. She sobbed, while Cailean comforted, neglecting his feelings for the loss of his twin brother in order to comfort the girl that his brother loved. Gale was nursing a scratch on his wrist, and he looked up at me and met my eyes, expecting me to come and treat him. I was the medic, after all. “Go take care of him,” I heard Peeta said, and I glanced at him for a moment as he egged next on. I nodded, then picked up my equipment and moved over to Gale, taking his wrist in my hand and starting to clean the wound.

“Thank you for saving him,” I said to him.

“I know how much you love him. I wouldn’t be able to stand how you’d be if he wasn’t here,” he replied, seemingly selfishly. I didn’t respond, and he let out a sigh. “Because it would hurt me as your friend.”

“Since when are you my friend? You’ve been against me from the beginning. And every apology you’ve given me you’ve revoked,” I replied.

“I still regret the things I said to you that day... I acted like I owned you, like I didn’t care how you felt about him... about Peeta... I knew how much you loved him and knowing that hurt me, so I wanted to hurt you back in the only way I knew how, and that was denying the truth and pretending it didn’t exist. And that was wrong, and I really, truly, am sorry,” Gale told me as I stitched up his wrist. “I accept that we were never meant to be, and I accept that you love him, and that you belong to him.”

“I don’t belong to him. I don’t belong to anyone.”

“You picked who you couldn’t survive without.”

“You make me sound cold and unloving.”

“Couldn’t be farther from the truth. I guess I could have worded that better. You can survive without him, but you don’t  _ want _ to, and I accept that.”

“Do you love Johanna?”

“I want to, but I don’t know if I can. Not yet.”

“Take it from the expert in love deniability,” I said to him. “Don’t lie to yourself. If you love her, don’t tell yourself that you don’t, and if you don’t, don’t force yourself to love her. You’ll regret it.” He nodded gently as I now bandaged his wrist.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” he said after a moment of silence. “I know how that feels, losing a sibling...”

“It’s happened to me before. I’ve lost Calum before. Now I’ve just lost him all over again,” I replied. “Keep that clean or it’ll get infected.” I stood and walked over to a sink to wash my hands, not wanting to talk about my brother. I wiped a tear from my eye and stood against the sink, not ready to face the unit, or to face Peeta and have him ask me what was wrong again and again until I answered. When I turned, he was watching me, and I let out a sigh. Might as well get this over with. I returned to Peeta’s side and sat down beside him, and he wrapped his arms around me and held me against his shoulder. He didn’t ask me what was wrong - he already knew.

We spent the night in Tigris’s basement, I falling asleep against Peeta’s shoulder rather quickly and waking up with his head resting against mine, his chest slowly rising and falling, indicating that he was in a deep slumber. I didn’t move, not wanting to wake him. He looked so peaceful among the chaos that surrounded us and I wanted to keep him that way for as long as I could. Suddenly, Donnel sat down beside his little brother on the other side, knowing that I was awake. “How’s his leg?” he whispered to me.

“He’ll be all right,” I replied. He looked as if he wanted to say something else. “Please don’t tell me you’re sorry for anything... I’ve heard it enough.” He nodded, not saying another word for a moment.

“He told me about the baby. Asked me to protect you, in case he couldn’t,” Donnel told me. Of course Peeta told his brother about the baby.

“Doesn’t surprise me one bit,” I replied, my arm still wrapped around Peeta’s abdomen.

“He loves you and wants to make sure you’re taken care of if something happens to him.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of by anyone but him.” I wanted to say that I didn’t need to be taken care of by anyone period, but I knew that there were times that I needed Peeta to take care of me.

“He was just looking out for you.”

“I know.” Another moment of silence passed between myself and my brother-in-law. “What do you know about Tigris? You knew her, knew she was against Snow and the Capitol. Why?”

“She’s been wronged by Snow in so many ways... I think the biggest thing was how he killed the version of himself that Tigris once knew and loved.”

“She was his lover, too?” Donnel chuckled quietly.

“No, she’s his cousin. They used to be very close, when they were young, but... then he changed. And she changed. She was against the man he was becoming and he threatened to have her killed if she didn’t support him.”

“That sounds so terrible.”

“What sounds so terrible?” Peeta’s voice startled us both as Donnel and I looked down into his sleepy eyes.

“Peeta, my love, you should be sleeping,” I told him.

“You two woke me up,” he replied with amusement, looking first at me and then at his brother. “What are you talking about?”

“About Tigris, and how she’s Snow’s cousin and she wants him equally as dead as we do,” Donnel told his brother.

“Now you know, so go back to sleep,” I tried to tell my husband.

“How about you  _ go _ to sleep and I’ll consider falling  _ back _ asleep,” he said to me defiantly, and I shook my head.

“Stubborn man, you are,” I replied.

“I learned from the best,” he told me, pulling me closer to him and kissing the side of my head.

“Guess I should leave the happy couple be,” said Donnel with amusement, and he stood and left us to sit there, and as we were about to lean into one another for a kiss, we were interrupted by Gale, who crawled over to us and sat down in front of us.

“We’re close enough to Snow that I should tell you what my separate orders are,” he said, and Peeta and I exchanged a glance before we looked back at Gale. “My orders are to assassinate Snow.”

“Not without me, you’re not,” I said suddenly, and Peeta looked at me.

“And you’re not without me,” he told me, equally as firmly as I had responded to Gale.

“You’re staying here where it’s safe, Peeta. You’re injured,” I told him, now looking at him.

“I won’t let you go,” Peeta replied.

“Need I remind you who here is actually first in command and who is second in command?” I asked him. We both acted as commanders of equal rank, however, it was actually me who was in command, while Peeta was second in command. “You’re staying behind. That’s an order.”

“An order I’ll disobey,” he said back to me.

“You’re  _ not _ coming,” I replied firmly.

“This is actually a mission that I should be doing myself-” Gale began, interrupting mine and Peeta’s argument, but I shushed him.

“Peeta, you’re not coming and that’s final,” I told him, letting go of him and pushing myself away from him.

“You try stopping me,” he replied back, and I just rolled my eyes.

“What time do we leave?” I asked Gale.

“ _ I _ should actually probably leave sooner rather than later...” Gale started, but we were interrupted by another Capitol broadcast. This one told of the evacuation of the rest of the Capitol and that Snow was welcoming everyone into his mansion for safety and that he was offering food, clothing and medicine to the citizens of the Capitol. “Guess the other teams are closing in...”

“Now’s the best time to go,” I said. “With refugees heading to the mansion, now’s the best time for it. We can get disguises and slip in unnoticed. How far are we from Snow’s mansion?”

“Couple of blocks,” said Cressida. “No one will ever see you coming.”

“Guess we’d better ask Tigris if she can disguise us,” said Peeta, standing up unaided and with little difficulty. The salve I’d put on his burns and the bites on his leg had healed them in his sleep.

“Peeta, no,” I began as he started to climb the stairs.

“My leg is better, Katniss. Not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” he said back, and he knocked on the panel above his head. Before I knew it, Gale and I were dressed in large hideous Capitol coats and Tigris was helping Peeta put one on.

“No,” I said again. “That’s very kind of you, Tigris, but he’s not going.”

“I told you that you’re not stopping me,” said Peeta angrily and through gritted teeth, and Gale came over again to break up the argument.

“He can try to break through on the other side of the crowd. Two teams, you and me, Peeta and Donnel,” Gale replied, and Peeta seemed to accept that.

“It’s out of your hands now, Katniss,” Peeta told me, and I wanted to punch him, but knowing how that no matter what I said, he was going, I dropped all anger I held for him and just pulled him into my arms for a tight embrace.

“I might never see you again,” I told him through tears, and I felt him smile into my neck as he kissed it.

“If you don’t, you’ll have something to remember me by,” he whispered, putting a hand on my stomach. It was impossible to see that I was pregnant, so it could easily look as if we were faking it like we were during the Quarter Quell, but Peeta and I both knew that it was real.

“Peeta...” I whispered back, not wanting to hear him say things like that.

“If I see you again... it’ll be a different world.” He pulled back from the embrace and smiled at me, and he pressed his lips to mine one last time. When we finally broke our kiss, he smiled again. “You’re so beautiful... I love you so much, Katniss.”

“Don’t say goodbye,” I whispered to him through tears.

“Then I’ll see you soon,” he said back.

“I love you, Peeta,” I said, pulling him back into my arms and holding him tightly. And then we were off, blending in with the crowd of Capitol refugees making their way towards Snow’s mansion. I wanted to be with Peeta so badly, but we’d be more easily recognised together than we would be separately. Nearby was a little girl wearing a yellow coat, and when she looked up into my face, I thought for sure that she would give us away, but she didn’t. Instead, she only smiled sweetly, having no idea what was going to happen to her. I could have sworn I heard Gale whisper something beside me.

I had no idea what was going to happen to her either because I went into a sort of state of shock right after it happened. I thought I saw her get hit, blood splattering that sweet pale yellow coat. I saw fighters with the rebel seal on the wings flying overhead and at first, I thought they were going to target the mansion, but they didn’t. Instead, they started shooting into the crowd of Capitol refugees and I felt Gale push me down, knocking my earpiece out of my ear. “Who authorised this?” I demanded to know as I watched the rebel fighters shooting down regular Capitol citizens.

“I did,” he replied. “Let’s go.” He stood and dragged me to stand and then started pushing through the crowd again. We got separated when a second round of fighters came through and I watched him get grabbed by a Peacekeeper. “Shoot me,” he mouthed, but I couldn’t dare. If I did, I’d give away my position as well as my identity, he knew that, and yet he kept begging me to shoot him until he disappeared into a van. I continued on, no earpiece to connect me to Peeta any longer, and decided to finish the mission that Gale had been assigned. Did I want to kill Snow? Not personally, but he’d taken everything from me, and I wasn’t going to let him even have the chance to take Peeta from me.

Suddenly, a Capitol hovercraft flew overhead and stopped, causing the Capitol citizens who were left to freeze. When I looked at the crowd, there were children corralled in a separate section waiting to be let into the Capitol while the rest of the citizens stood by waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, the hatch at the bottom opened up and released maybe fifty parachutes, very similar to the ones used in the arena, onto the crowd. “Gifts!” some of the people shouted, and I watched as the citizens of the Capitol raised their hands in unison as the hovercraft flew away. How unusual, I thought, that the Capitol would be releasing parachutes over their citizens right now of all times. But then I found out why. About half of them exploded in the hands of the people that held them and the explosion deafened me as it threw me back. I landed in a puddle of someone’s blood, and I met the dead eyes of the woman it belonged to. She was young, easily my age, and dressed in the stupid fashion of the Capitol, but no matter how stupid I thought she looked, she didn’t deserve this. None of them did.

These people, the Capitol citizens, knew nothing else. They were raised to believe that Snow was doing right by the country of Panem and he rewarded the citizens of the Capitol for their support with ostentatious money, food, body modifications and so much more. These people didn’t know fear, or starvation, only minor inconveniences which to them, were the end of the world, and that wasn’t their fault. It was the only thing they knew. They didn’t have to fear for the lives of their children, so they didn’t. They didn’t have to fear for the lives of their loved ones if they made a mistake, so they didn’t. They didn’t know what actually happened in the districts. They were fed lies, lies that said we were taken care of and fed and happy and bowed down to Panem, willingly sacrificing two of our children every year. They didn’t know.

I sat up, putting out the fire at the base of my large ostentatious Capitol coat, and watched as the victims of the bombs moaned and cried not only from their wounds, but for the loss of their loved ones, or of their homes. The world that they knew had come crashing down before them, and their faces turned to expressions of disgust as they realised what their beloved president had done to them. Snow. How could he? To his own people? Perhaps he knew he was going to be killed. He wanted to take down the people of the Capitol with him - mercy killings? He knew that their lives would change and that perhaps they wouldn’t be able to handle the culture shock that they would have to endure with the change of government, so he wanted to take them with him. He didn’t even give them a choice.

I watched as rebel medics ran through the crowds to the sides of wounded Capitol citizens, and my attention was caught by a blonde braid. I felt my stomach drop as I realised what was happening. Prim. She was here in the Capitol, on the battlefield tending to the wounded as a field medic does. She was lost to the world as she opened her medic pack and started treating the burns of the poor bastard that lay beneath her, and a sick feeling suddenly took over me. “Prim!” I shouted, and her brilliant blue eyes looked up at me. Our eyes locked for only a moment, before the fires consumed her and everyone around her.

It was all in slow motion. The fires, eating up everything in their path, burned whoever was left behind, living or dead, Capitol or rebel. It was indiscriminate, just as death always was. Death didn’t care if you were Capitol or District, male or female, black or white, rich or poor, old or young... Death didn’t care if you deserved it or not. It took everything, and everyone. The fires came from the other half of the parachutes that had been released. When they exploded, some had thrown the unexploded ones away in fear, not knowing that they were going to meet the same fate anyway. One of those parachutes that had been thrown away lay next to me, about ten feet away, and I was on fire.

The girl on fire, they called me. I could almost laugh at the irony. The girl on fire I was, indeed. I am a girl, and I was on fire. I saw the light before it all faded to black.


	23. Chapter XXII: The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss’s life flashes before her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘The Promise’ — When In Rome

_They say in the last few moments of your life, your entire life flashes before your very eyes, playing back like a movie. I must have been dying, because all of a sudden, I was watching my short life of twenty years play out before me._

_Hebridia. I was young and naive, maybe five or six years old. My father held me on his lap as he scribbled down calculations and dosages. For what, I didn’t know - some kind of vaccine, maybe? I knew he was a scientist and I knew he made medicines, but that was all I knew. He loved me dearly, though, and included me in everything. We rode wave runners together, hunted and farmed together, and so much more. But that was all I could remember._

_And then I was seven with my mother. She had bright auburn hair and a charming, lovely smile. I was assisting her with a woman who was in labour. The woman thought I was too young, but my mother assured me that I would be all right, that I could handle it. She was a gentle woman, but had a fierce heart. She was full of fire, Eilidh Fólais, and her patients knew to never cross her. And that was all I could remember of her._

_Cailean and Calum, the three of us young and stupid along with my twin brother, Dòmhnall. We used to collect crabs from traps that hung off of the docks and we used to flip them over, step on their claws and rub their bellies until they fell asleep, and then we would put on crab puppet shows. Calum always had the best stories for our crab puppets, so he would always narrate them while the rest of us would perform. Dòmhnall was more shy and quiet than Cailean and Calum, so his crab was usually a minor character or even a magic talking tree._

_Ashilda was young, only four years old, but she loved the crab puppet shows. She had auburn hair, like my mother, and brilliant storm grey eyes that mimicked the skies of Hebridia, which were constantly covered in clouds. She loved to dance more than anything. In Hebridia, we called big gatherings a cèilidh, and she was always the center of attention on the dance floor at every cèilidh the Fòlais family attended._

_Alasdair and Anndra were too young for me to know what they were like, or even would have been like. They’d only been about a year old when they died._

_Dòmhnall. I watched his death. We’d become separated from our family when the pirates attacked and we ran and ran as far and as fast as we could, but it wasn’t enough. A sword stabbed him through the abdomen and I could see the light leaving his youthful eyes, eyes that would never grow old. I was fearful. I ran from the gruesome face that laughed at the murder of a child and found myself hiding in a barrel. I was found later, when it was safe to come out._

_My uncle was all I had left, and my young cousin. Evidently, he was in District Twelve, where he had gone when I was only just a baby. He spoke with an official-looking man and another beside him in a language that I couldn’t understand. Well, the official-looking man and the other man did. My uncle spoke in Hebridean to the other man. They talked about how my uncle was going to adopt me. I sat in a chair beside him, still in the clothes I wore on the ship, the last clothes I wore in Hebridia that were still stained with Dòmhnall’s blood, and I was seated beside my uncle. He told me then that I had to start calling him my father or else we would all get into a lot of trouble. There were tears in his eyes when he said it._

_At school, the children were harsh. I didn’t speak English, so they mocked me. But you knew that. They said things to me that I was told were cruel, but I didn’t know what they meant. I had a teacher who spoke my language and she would teach me English, and I would have to meet with her even outside of school. My uncle’s wife, Agnessa, was the daughter of a Hebridean refugee who moved to Panem as a child. She spoke to us for the first week in Gàidhlig, then insisted that we speak only English in the house. It was a very difficult transition._

_And then you. The boy. The blonde boy with the charming smile, the brilliant blue eyes, who always smelled of cinnamon and clove, you who was unconditionally kind to me when so many others weren’t. At lunch, no one wanted to sit with me, so I sat by myself underneath a tree. This blonde boy - you - sat down beside me and uttered something that I couldn’t understand. “I don’t speak English, I’m sorry,” I told you in my native language. You only smiled, said something else, and then we ate in silence._

_One particularly rainy day, only a couple of months after I came to Panem, it was raining. I’d always loved the rain. The rain soothed and comforted me, but to most others, it was a nuisance. As I walked home from school, a couple of boys in my grade ran up to me, said some things that I couldn’t understand and then shoved me into a big puddle. They laughed and laughed, and then they ran off. I seethed with anger, wanting desperately to know why they hated me so much, when suddenly, there was an outstretched hand in my face. I looked up into the brilliant blue eyes of the blonde boy who was kind to me, and I took your hand. You helped me to stand, and then pulled off your own jacket to wrap around my shoulders. I gave you a gentle smile, unsure of what to do or say since we couldn’t communicate. And you smiled back and then gestured to yourself. “Peeta,” you said. That I understood - you were introducing yourself._

_“Katniss,” I replied with a smile. I let you walk me home, although the walk was in silence. The next day at school, you were covered in bruises. I returned your jacket to you, wondering if you got those bruises because you were kind to me, and resolved to never let someone get beaten for me again. I couldn’t let you be kind to me, even though it was so wonderful. I avoided you mostly, not wanting it to happen again, and I could tell how much it hurt you._

_A year into my living in Panem, I was nine, and I was nearly fluent in English. It was easier to do than I had thought, considering I had constant exposure to it. You had bumped into me in the hallway at school, forcing me to drop what I was carrying, and you stopped to help me._

_“I’m so sorry, Katniss!” you said apologetically._

_“It is okay,” I said back in English, and you looked up at me with a smile on your face._

_“Your English, it’s... it’s so much better,” you said. I nodded gently, careful not to smile. We stood, and you handed me the things that I had dropped and you collected. “I... I’ll see you...” you said sadly, and you left. But what you didn’t know was that I watched you leave, unhappy with what I felt I had to do to keep you from getting beaten again._

_When my uncle died, it was you I thought of running to. I’d had no friends, or really anyone other than Prim and Agnessa. You had been the only one kind enough to me for me to consider a friend, but the thought of bruises on your sweet face scared me into staying away. You helped me anyway. When I was lost to the world and dying of starvation against a tree near your house, I saw two loaves of bread appear in my face and when I looked up, I was met by your kind eyes. We were eleven at the time, and you were giving me bread that you had purposely burned so that I wouldn’t starve. It was raining and you had come out in it to hand me that bread, and you were smiling warmly. Part of me didn’t want to accept your charity due to pride, but I couldn’t let pride keep little Prim from starving._

_“PEETA!” I heard your mother yell, and you turned with fear dancing in your eyes to look at her, and then you looked back at me._

_“Katniss, go! Run!” you told me, and you helped me to stand and pushed me to run off, and I did. The next day, your left eye was swollen shut, it was bruised so badly, but when we met eyes, you smiled at me, signalling to me that you believed the beating to be worth it. I never thanked you, not until years later, because I couldn’t bring myself to do it. You never asked me to thank you, either._

_When I was twelve, I met Gale. I thought he was going to kill me, but he didn’t. Instead, we became very close friends, closer than I could have imagined. And suddenly, I thought that I didn’t need you to be happy. Not when I had Gale._

_When we were fourteen, I started apprenticing as a midwife. I started going to the bakery beforehand to pick up cookies for my patients, but what I didn’t realise was that I wanted to be around you. I wanted to see you, even though I told myself that I was just doing kind things for my patients. You smiled every time that I came in, and when you served me for the first time, your cheeks were red the entire time. You were always too kind to me - kinder than I deserved, especially since I wasn’t kind to you._

_When we were fifteen, you stopped me in the hall one day, tapping my shoulder with your hand. I felt my heart stop when my eyes met your beautiful blue eyes and then it started it up again, beating faster than I wanted it to. I was sure you could see it thumping through my chest. “Hey, Katniss?” you asked me._

_“Hm?” I asked back, trying not to sound as desperate for your touch again as I felt._

_“Would I be able to... borrow your chemistry notes? You’re just so smart and you seem to know everything... The last unit made no sense to me,” you said to me, and I nodded and pulled the notes out of my notebook, my fingers brushing yours only for a moment as I handed them to you. I could see a gentle blush creeping onto your cheeks. “Thanks... I’ll... give these back soon.” You gave me a charming smile and then you left, with me not having uttered a word. My chemistry notes weren’t even written in English, since our teacher, Ms. MacDougall, was also Hebridean._

_Shortly before I turned sixteen, you crept into my dreams. I dreamt that we were in school together, outside at lunch underneath the tree where you had joined me for the first time. I couldn’t hear a word that we were saying, but we were smiling and laughing. You looked so handsome, so beautifully blonde with eyes a brilliant sky blue, and a smile so charming and so kind. I saw your arm slide around my shoulders - felt it, too - and then you leaned closer to me. The contact of our lips, the softness of yours against mine, jolted me awake and I gasped, not knowing where the hell that dream came from. Somewhere deep inside of me, my mind was telling me that I wanted to kiss you, that I wanted to love you, and marry you, and be totally and completely yours, but I suppressed those feelings as much as I could. I didn’t want to love you, or kiss you, especially marry you, and I didn’t want to belong to you. I didn’t want to love or marry anyone. But I couldn’t stop the dull ache in my heart that longed for you._

_I can’t tell you the fear and the pain that I felt when your name was called at the reaping. We were both sixteen then, and terrified, convinced that we weren’t coming home, that we’d both die in the arena. Perhaps that was why I took advantage of the whole ‘star-crossed lovers’ thing that Haymitch created. I thought I was going to die, and I wanted to know what dying while loving you felt like. It hurt so much that I couldn’t bear to let you die. Nor could I bear the pain of being without you even in death, so I convinced you to join me for a suicide by nightlock berries, but we were interrupted before we got the chance. Perhaps things would be different had we actually gone through with it, but I don’t think I would have died genuinely loving you._

_I still remember every kiss we shared. In the cave, three times before I went to get your medicine. The first was when I was arguing with you about going and you took my shoe. My love, the feelings that erupted inside of me were enough to warm me from the cold and make me explode inside. I had desperately wanted to know what it felt like to kiss you for so long, and then I did, and I liked it so much that I wanted to do it again and again, never stopping. The second was after you had taken my shoe. The third was my promise to you that I would return, and I did. When I returned, you were angry with me for the scratch on my forehead from Clove’s knife, but you kissed me again anyway, a fourth time, because you were glad that I was alive. We kissed a fifth time when I was angry with you for nearly eating a nightlock berry and you kissed me to calm me down. The sixth kiss we shared was right before we threatened to eat those berries._

_I kissed you a seventh time on the stage at the Capitol at our post-Games interview, excited to see you again alive and in one piece, and I couldn’t let go of you throughout the entire interview. That kiss made me feel warm and happy and invigorated inside, but it lasted only a moment, because it seemed that that kiss wasn’t for us._

_It was on the train home that I realised your feelings for me were genuine. I had no idea. It broke my heart to tell you that I wanted to forget, to move on, to try and piece together my life in a way that I could retain who I used to be, and you turned cold towards me. I thought that you stopped loving me, and part of me was glad, but the part of me that kissed you with hunger back in the arena longed for your touch, and longed for your lips on mine._

_We kissed again, an eighth time, several months later. It was right before the Victory Tour, when we were presented to the Capitol on television and you slipped and I lay on top of you. I didn’t have to kiss you, but I wanted to, and I pressed my lips to yours and lost myself in you as my tongue tried to find its way to yours. I felt the fire erupt inside of me again, but we were interrupted. After that brief interview, you said to me, “Nice acting. I almost thought that kiss was real.” And then you were gone. “It was real,” I thought to myself._

_Our ninth kiss happened on the train to District Ten, after we’d accidentally started a riot in Eleven. I screamed myself awake from a nightmare and you were by my side in seconds, holding me in your arms and telling me that everything would be okay, that it wasn’t real. I pulled my tear-stained face from your now soaked shoulder and felt my hand raise itself to your cheek, as if involuntarily, and brushed my fingers gently across your lips. The Katniss that I didn’t know I wanted to be took control of me, and I pressed my lips to yours, kissing you and refusing to let you go. “Stay with me,” I begged you, fighting tears again as I clung to you._

_“Always,” you whispered back, crawling into my bed beside me and holding me tightly. It was this kiss that made me realise that perhaps my feelings for you weren’t fake after all. Or rather, I stopped lying to myself by saying that that wasn’t what I wanted. Our tenth kiss was for the cameras in Ten, and we shared our eleventh in Nine, our twelfth in Eight, and so on until we shared our nineteenth kiss in District One._

_Our twentieth kiss was on the same stage we’d had our interviews at before the Games in the Capitol. We were being interviewed by Caesar Flickerman and you’d dropped down to one knee and proposed to me on live television for all of Panem to see, just like we’d planned. I acted surprised and thrilled, because I knew you were going to do it, and I let you slip the ring onto my finger and when you stood, you took my waist in your hands and I took your face in mine and we shared our twentieth kiss._

_At this point, kissing you seemed to be almost natural. Our twenty-first kiss happened in the Training Center, where we were staying in the same penthouse flat we’d stayed in before going into the Games. You came down for breakfast from your room and passed me on your way to your seat beside me. “Hey,” you said with a charming smile._

_“Good morning,” I said, lightly pecking your lips, and I blushed a furious shade of pink as you looked at me quite confused. There were no cameras here, so why was I kissing you? I decided to take my breakfast in my room that morning._

_Our twenty-second kiss happened as we waved goodbye to the Capitol. We held hands as we waved to those ridiculously dressed people and I felt you squeeze my hand, and when I looked at you, you smiled and pressed your lips to mine, then turned back to wave at those Capitol idiots. I smiled warmly, still feeling your kiss lingering on my lips, but we wouldn’t kiss again for a long time._

_Our twenty-third kiss happened shortly before the reaping of the Quarter Quell, when we sat on the fence at dawn and argued about who was going into the arena with me. I’d told you that I didn’t want to lose you, and then tried to pretend I hadn’t said it. You’d already heard it, though, and knew what it meant, and you said my name again and again until I was forced to look at you and you pressed your lips to mine for the first time in months. Oh, my darling, you have no idea how that kiss made me feel. I wanted to stay on that fence kissing you forever, but I knew that I couldn’t. Instead, the Katniss that I knew I no longer wanted to be took over, and she panicked and ran. You called out my name and I continued to run until I was safe inside of my house. I didn’t see you again until the reaping._

_I wanted to kill you for volunteering in Haymitch’s place but I knew that I couldn’t stop you. I could see in your eyes how angry you were at how I was going back into the arena at all, and I knew that you were just going to ignore every protest I gave. A tear ran down my cheek as I thought of losing you in the arena. All of District Twelve gave us the familiar three finger salute as we were sent off to our deaths._

_In the days leading up to the Games, I fought with myself over how I felt about you. Did I love you? Were my feelings still fake? No, they couldn’t be. I’ve known that I’ve had feelings for you for months now. Every time you looked at me, you made my heart flutter and every smile made me want to explode. I couldn’t ever stop thinking about how soft your lips were or how much I wanted to kiss you every time that I saw you. Once, I nearly did, but I saved myself by hugging you instead. You seemed tense, but you returned it anyway._

_At the parade, we had our twenty-fourth kiss. You came out looking so handsome in that all black vest with your muscular arms exposed and I couldn’t help myself when you came over to me after my conversation with Finnick, and I started touching your arms. “You look... incredible,” I said with hunger in my eyes, and you smiled at me._

_“You look gorgeous,” you replied. “What’d Finnick want?”_

_“To know all my secrets,” I replied._

_“He’ll have to get in line,” you said with a chuckle, and I smiled, my hands still on your well-toned arms. You looked at my hand on your arm, and then back up at me. “You want a kiss?” I was almost taken aback by this rather forward question, but I couldn’t stop myself from nodding. I felt the heat inside of me exploding as you took me in your arms and pressed your lips to mine, and right before I felt my hands make their way up to your hair, Portia, your stylist, started scolding me for even thinking of doing so. I was embarrassed, but I laughed, and you smiled at me and took my hand, giving it a firm squeeze and then kissing my cheek._

_Our twenty-fifth kiss happened when we were preparing to go downstairs for training. We were wearing sleeveless shirts and once again, you looked incredibly handsome, and when I saw you come out of your room dressed like that, my eyes looked at you hungrily. You stopped in front of me with a seemingly tired facial expression. “There’s no cameras here, Katniss. You don’t need to keep up the act,” you said, but you must have seen the hurt in my eyes, because for a moment, you looked down at your feet, and then you gently pecked my lips with yours. “Come on.” You gave me a smile and held out your hand and I took it._

_The day of our interviews, I knew I was in love with you. I knew for a fact that what I felt was love and god dammit, Peeta Mellark, I loved you so much. I loved your beautiful blonde curls and your perfect blue eyes, I loved your sweet smile and how you always wanted to keep me safe. I loved your firm embrace and the softness of your lips. I just loved you. I watched you as you talked to me on the roof of the Training Center before our interviews. I didn’t hear what you said, but I watched you with all of the love and the admiration I felt for you. I didn’t know how to tell you, and I wasn’t ready yet. I knew I was wasting time, but I was so scared that you wouldn’t believe me or you’d laugh in my face, or worse, tell me that your feelings for me were all a rouse and you never actually loved me the way you said you did. I fantasized about your soft, warm lips on mine and your strong hands exploring my body. I felt like a silly teenager - but then again, I was a silly teenager._

_That night, you told the world that I was pregnant in a last-ditch effort to get the Games cancelled, but it didn’t work. When we returned to my bedroom and heard the door lock behind us, I threw myself into your arms and cried into your shoulder. “Peeta, I can't do this... Oh, Peeta... Peeta...” I moaned through tears, and you held me tightly in your arms._

_“Shhh, it’ll be okay...” you tried to tell me, but it wouldn’t work. Not tonight. Tomorrow, I could lose you, and my greatest fears were manifesting. You told me to take a shower and I did, and you waited to embrace me again when I got out, and then it was your turn. Yours was quicker than mine and you climbed into my bed - our bed - as quickly as you could and held me in your arms. I felt your lips bury into my hair and I smiled against your chest, tears still forming in my eyes. I turned my head to look up at you._

_“Peeta...” I whispered, and you looked down at me, and before either of us knew it, your lips were on mine. My hands were on your face and I wiped away tears that fell from your eyes, and we kissed and kissed until we fell asleep in each other’s arms, our faces mere millimetres away from one another’s. When we awoke, all we did was look into each other’s eyes. “I don’t want to be in the arena with anyone else. Only you,” I said, and you nodded._

_“If that’s what you want,” you whispered to me. We heard a knock at the door. “I’ll see you soon,” you said, and you pressed your lips to mine one final time before getting up and leaving. Twenty-six and twenty-seven._

_Twenty-eight happened after you’d hit the forcefield and died. Oh, my love, I was so afraid that I had lost you, but I hadn’t, and with tears of joy in my eyes the moment you took your first breath after Finnick did CPR to save your life and overcome with emotions, I kissed you and held you close to me. “Shh, it’s okay... it’s working now...” you told me as I cried about your heart having stopped._

_Our twenty-ninth and thirtieth kisses were somewhat similar to our twenty-eighth. It was after the island where the cornucopia was had finally stopped spinning. While it spun, my hand slipped from Johanna’s and I fell into the water. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was on the complete opposite side of the island from you, Finnick and Johanna, and you had asked Johanna where I was - demanded, even - but she didn’t know. And then, the sound of a cannon went off. You panicked thinking it was me, and as you ran around the island searching for something you feared, my floating corpse in the water, instead, you saw me hoisting myself up onto the rocks and lying across them on my stomach._

_”Katniss!” you called, running as fast as your legs could carry you on that uneven surface until you were by my side in seconds after I first heard you call my name. “Katniss! Katniss! Are you all right, Katniss?” I gave you a thumbs up as I continued to cough water up and you gently rubbed and patted my back, and then I rolled onto my back to look up at the sky when your lips suddenly came crashing down on mine. I was shocked, already stunned from the water in my lungs but even more when I felt your hands holding my face and your lips against mine, warming me to my very core. I felt my hands go to your face, one cupping your cheek and the other running through your hair. “I thought I lost you...”_

_”Come on, you’re not that lucky,” I teased with a smile, and you rolled your eyes at me, but smiled. “Can’t say the same for Cashmere. That was her cannon that went off. Guess she wasn’t dead by Johanna’s impeccable axe-throwing skills.” You smiled again as your hand brushed back my hair, now loose from the current pulling my hair free of its braid, and you kissed my forehead. “Guess it was my turn to give you a heart attack.”  
_

_“I’m extra sorry for the one I gave you back at the force field,” you said with that beautiful, handsome smile of yours._

_”Good, you should be,” I teased, and you pressed your lips to mine again in a quick kiss and helped me to stand._

_Thirty-one was the kiss that changed our relationship forever. Our thirty-first kiss was the kiss that made me decide that enough was enough, that I would confess my feelings for you. After we kissed, I told you I loved you, and I could have sworn I saw you cry tears of joy as I cried about how angry I was at myself for not confessing my feelings sooner._

_Thirty-two was the kiss we shared before I left with Johanna and the coil, the last kiss we shared before we were picked up in the arena by the rebel forces in Thirteen, and thirty-three was the kiss you gave me when I was put under again in my delirium. As that scene played back in my head, I cringed at how I called for you, begged for you and could only say your name, but I knew that that was the moment that you knew for sure that my love for you was real._

_I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when I learned that Calum and Cailean had survived. As soon as I saw them, with their mirror image features and their single blue and brown eye each, I couldn’t stop crying as I hugged them both tightly. They hadn’t told me about my father yet, and wouldn’t for a couple of days. When they told me about my father, that was when I found myself slipping into a depression._

_My heart broke when I saw how heartbroken you were when I pulled myself away from you. I was sad and still delirious, in shock still from all the emotions I felt, from confessing my love to you to learning that two of my brothers were alive, to learning that District Twelve had been bombed and so many people, your family included, died. How I was to be the face of the rebellion. I couldn’t cope, and I blocked out the only person in the world who could help me cope: you. I told you I loved you again in the rain, in that moment we shared together, but I knew there was still a lot on your mind and that you wanted to talk to me. I was a bit shy, but I was tired of dodging my feelings, so I let you bring me to your room and sit me down on your bed._

_“We need to talk about this... about us,” you’d told me, and I nodded. “How long have you loved me?” I shrugged._

_“Longer than I’ve known,” I replied honestly. “I stopped lying to myself in the Capitol, before the Quell. I knew I had feelings for you, but I kept suppressing them.”_

_“Why do you love me?”_

_“Peeta...”_

_“Katniss, I just want you to understand why I’m questioning you about this. Do you know why?” I did. Most of my love for you had been fake, for the cameras only and only sometimes did I kiss you for real in between, but you never knew that those kisses were real. I nodded in response to your question. “Why do you love me?”_

_“Because love is weird,” I replied, and you raised an eyebrow. “I’m not good with words, you know this.”_

_“Well, you’re gonna have to get over that because I need to hear your reasons. Most of the love you’ve shown me hasn’t been real. I want to know why this is real, why this is different from everything else.” I nodded again._

_“Very well, but prepare for a very long night because I’ve got to formulate my words.”_

_“You don’t have to tell me tonight. You can take some time to think about it, as long as you need, but until then, I don’t think we should see each other.” At that, I felt my stomach drop, but I knew why you said that. You wanted to protect your heart. I’d broken it so many times that I couldn’t blame you. I went back to my room that night and spent all night writing down a letter - or rather, a script, that I would read to you. That way, I couldn’t mess up what I had to say. I wrote down all of the reasons why I loved you and also included some mushy phrases I thought you’d like, but I wasn’t sure if I could actually voice them. It took me two days to work up the courage to read it to you. I knocked on your door and you opened it, surprised to see me standing there with a bunch of papers in my hands, and you raised an eyebrow._

_“I need to talk to you,” I said, and you nodded and let me inside. I sat you down on your bed this time and looked down at my papers while you eagerly waited for me to speak. “You asked me why I loved you... Why this was real and how it was different from the others...” I looked at my papers and became lost for words, then sighed and dropped them to the ground. “I love you because you’ve always been kind to me, even when I didn’t deserve it. When we were young, you were the only person who was kind to me. Everyone else saw me as different because of where I came from, but you didn’t. No one could talk to me, not even you, but you found a way to communicate with me. I pushed you away because one day, I saw you had been beaten probably for how you treated me and I couldn’t live with that, but you didn’t give up, only stepped away to give me my space. And I love you because you respect my boundaries, even if they hurt you. I love you because you’re my sun and you keep me safe not only from the real world, but from my nightmares. You keep me safe from others and myself as well. I love you because you annoy me with constantly wanting to protect me, especially when I think I don’t need it. There’s no one else in the world who will go to the lengths that you do to protect me which means there’s no one that cares for me like you do, Peeta.” I paused for a moment, trying to read your facial expressions, but they were neutral. I was always easy to read, but you never were. “I love you for your kind heart. Even when it’s not me that you’re being kind to. You’re so kind to everyone and you always want to help everyone, even when it inconveniences you. You have a love for life that I wish I had. You’re kind to so many people who don’t deserve it. You’d never be any other way... I love you because you didn’t let the Games break you, but I did, and you easily could have allowed them to break you, but you didn’t. You were strong for me even when you probably barely had any strength left for yourself... Don’t think I didn’t know that you didn’t have nightmares, too.” I smiled as I got to the next part. “I love your appearance as well. You have no idea how incredibly handsome you are. I’ve always been attracted to you physically, and it took way too long for me to be attracted to you emotionally. I only wish that I could have told you sooner... maybe then you’d believe me.”_

_“I do believe you,” you said, looking up into my face. I hadn’t realised that I had tears leaking from my eyes and I quickly wiped them away with my sleeve, but you only smiled and held your arms out to me. “Come here.” It was my turn to smile and I collapsed into your arms, holding you tightly and kissing your face over and over as I freely sobbed into your shoulder._

_“I’m so sorry for everything, I never wanted to hurt you. I love you so much, Peeta,” I cried, and you gently rubbed my back._

_“It’s okay, Katniss. I love you, too,” you told me, and you took my face in your hands and kissed me in what was our first kiss as romantic partners._

_We shared many kisses in Thirteen after that, and soon, we started sharing a bed. Nothing more than sleeping and cuddling, but it was more than enough for us both. About six months in, you wanted to pursue a sexual relationship, but I wasn’t ready, and you told me to say “Peeta, I want to do the sex with you” when I was ready, which I did eventually, but not for a long time._

_And then came our marriage. We were married in Thirteen the night before we were due to leave on our missions, the ones that would separate us for two years. I wore a cream-coloured dress with the Fòlais tartan and you wore a simple white formal outfit - not a suit, but still very nice - and we participated both in a traditional wedding ceremony and in our own District Twelve toasting ceremony. I also convinced you to let us say a traditional Hebridean wedding vow, but it wasn’t as easy on your tongue as it was on mine. We couldn’t help but share a laugh as we held hands before the altar and professed our love for one another, promising to never falter. Our first kiss as Peeta and Katniss Mellark was one of passion and of love, telling all who came to witness our union how much we truly loved each other, and how our love was not what the Capitol made it out to be._

_Two years without you. My darling Peeta, those two years without you were unbearable. Every night, I cried myself to sleep because you weren’t beside me, as a husband should be, but it wasn’t your fault. We were given a life joined together and ripped apart by President Coin, who specifically requested that we lead separate missions. I don’t even think that she intended on us being separated for so long, but what did it matter? After a couple of months, she was dead, and so was District Thirteen._

_And then we were together again. I wanted to kiss you and hold you and tell you how much I loved you when I saw you in District Eight, full beard and all. Don’t ever grow your facial hair like that again. I might be dead, but I’ll haunt you until you shave it. It isn’t you. The beard was a man hardened by war, and you are not hard - you’re Peeta, my sweet, soft, gentle Peeta with lips so warm and so soft, with a scent of cinnamon and clove, sometimes dill, and the eyes of the sea._

_Oh, Peeta... I’m sorry for everything. I promised you that I wouldn’t die and yet here I am, giving up on life. Burning and on fire, my heart torn to shreds as the last image I had of Prim erupted into flames. I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t. I promised I wouldn’t. I can’t leave you, Peeta, I can’t! I can’t... I can’t..._

“Katniss....” _It was real. The voice was real. How could the voice be real? I was dead. Or dying still, because the images were still flashing before my head. My last images of my life weren’t of the great things I’d accomplished, like bargaining with Coin to rescue Annie Cresta and Johanna from the Capitol after the Quell, or creating a tracker jacker antivenom to cure Annie when she tried to kill myself and Finnick, or saving Johanna’s life when Gale gave her the wrong vial of antivenom that was made for B- and not Johanna’s A+. Of the great things I did in District Eight, or on that horrid two-year long mission. My last images were of you. My last thoughts are to you. Oh, Peeta... You are my life - were my life. My life was yours, and now it’s all gone..._

“Katniss, come on, wake up...” _There it was. The voice. I heard it. It was familiar, and it was real. Peeta... Peeta..._

“Peeta...” I murmured, coming to, and when I opened my eyes, I was met by a bright flash, and when my vision cleared, I could see that I was in a hospital setting. My eyes darted around, making out the clean white walls, cabinets, the bed that I lay on, and then finally, blue eyes, with blonde hairs falling over them. “Peeta...”

“He’s not here, sweetheart,” I heard the voice say. It wasn’t Peeta - it was Haymitch.


	24. Chapter XXIII: Picking Up The Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss recovers from the bombs as the rebellion comes to an end.

“He’s not here, sweetheart.”

The words stung. My Peeta wasn’t here, he wasn’t by my side... Haymitch sounded sad and the look in his eye told me that something terrible had happened. I heard the heart monitor increase and my breathing increased as well, and Haymitch stood up, panic written in the wrinkles of his aging face.

“No, no, no! Calm down, that ain’t what I meant!” he exclaimed in a panic. “He ain’t dead. But he’s very badly burned and he hasn’t woken up yet.”

“How long has it been?” I asked him weakly.

“Four days,” Haymitch replied. Four days. Four days since Finnick and Calum died. Four days since we converged on Snow’s mansion. Four days since Snow’s vicious parachute bombs killed my sister. Four days since I last saw Peeta.

“What’s happened?” I asked him calmly.

“Let’s see... after the bombs, the Peacekeepers turned against Snow and helped the rebels in breaking into the mansion. Snow got captured, he’s been kept prisoner ever since. We rescued all of Snow’s prisoners, all the ‘victors’ of his last three Games, and... and Effie.”

“Effie? Snow imprisoned her?”

“Sweetheart, she’s in a bad way... but your antivenom is helpin’ her. She’ll be okay, with help.”

“How’s Carolina?”

“Physically, she’s fine, but her heart’s broken, ever since that boy died. Your brother. Thanks for bringin’ my girl back to me, and I’m sorry about your brother...” He knew about Carolina and Calum. How did he... “The girl gets her knack for hearin’ gossip from me.”

“What about Annie?” Haymitch gently shook his head.

“She’s in a terrible state. She started havin’ lots of flashbacks. Now it’s like she never got the antivenom. The kids are bein’ cared for in Fourteen. Finnick’s mother was brought there. She was also imprisoned.” I honestly hadn’t known that Finnick’s mother was still alive. “Do you wanna hear what the Senate has been up to?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

“They’re waitin’ on you and the boy to get better. They don’t wanna make any decisions about the future without the original senators of Twelve.”

“What about Thirteen and Eight?”

“Paylor’s alive and well, and Thirteen’s stand-in has accepted the full-time role of the position.” I nodded and remained silent for a minute.

“Can I see him?”

“You ain't got the strength to move around yet. You was badly burned, needed lots of skin grafts and shit, I don’t know what they were talkin’ about with their damn doctor people talk. They said you gotta sit still for a bit.”

“I’m the one person in this world who can’t sit still.” At this, Haymitch laughed.

“You are wrong about that,” he said with amusement. “I’ve been to see the boy, though... He’s lookin’ rough, same as you. And, uh...” Suddenly, his hand was at the base of his skull and his gaze was directed elsewhere. “...sweetheart, you shoulda told someone you was expectin’... we coulda done somethin’ for... to protect...” He let out a sigh, then looked me directly in the eye. “I’m sorry... You lost the kid.”

My stomach dropped and my hands jumped to my abdomen, now empty with the life that should have been having been extinguished by the bomb. This damn war has now taken everything from me. Prim, Calum, Finnick, my family, my home, my child, maybe Peeta... I felt a tear start to fall down my cheek as I mourned the loss of the child that would never be. I felt Haymitch’s thumb wipe the tear from my cheek in a very fatherly manner.

“Be strong, kiddo, but take whatever time you need... If you need me, just tell one of them fancy people in white and they’ll come and get me,” Haymitch said to me, and he leaned over to plant a kiss on my forehead before getting up and leaving my room. As soon as I was alone, I let out a sob, mourning my child and longing for Peeta to come and hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay, even if it wasn’t. But he wasn’t there. He was unwell, probably close to dying, and I wasn’t allowed to go to him.

“Peeta... Peeta...” I moaned through my sobs, covering my face with my hands and my whole body shaking. I must have cried myself to sleep, or I was given more drugs, because when I woke up, this time, Carolina was seated beside me, her gentle smile coming to life when I opened my eyes. She was trying her best to look happy and at peace, but I could see the war against sadness that she was holding in her eyes.

“Hey,” she said, the sadness creeping into her voice. “How’re you feeling?”

“How long has it been? How’s Peeta?” I asked her.

“A few hours maybe... he’s much the same, I’m afraid,” she replied. “He’ll be okay. I know how badly you want to see him, and as soon as you’re able to get up, I’ll take you to see him.”

“You will?” She nodded. “Thank you...”

“He’s being kept under isolation, but there’s a window you can see him through. His burns were so much worse than yours, Katniss, and it caused a lot of damage...” I nodded, fighting the tears that were stinging in my eyes. “You love him so much, that much is so obvious. He knows it, too, so he’ll fight to get back to you. Peeta won’t let anything keep you two apart.”

“We won the war... Now there’s nothing that’ll keep us apart,” I said, my voice laced with hope, and she smiled again. Carolina was perhaps one of my closest female friends, along with Johanna, and I remembered the day that we met. It was in Thirteen, in a similar setting to the one we were in presently. Peeta was sitting by my side holding my hand while I recovered from the lightning shock when she came in, smiling brilliantly and charming and looking oddly familiar.

_ “Hello,” _ she’s said.  _ “I’ve been looking forward to meeting both of you. I’m Carolina... Carolina Abernathy.” _ I remembered how Peeta and I both exchanged a glance before we looked back at her, and she shrugged.  _ “It’s exactly what you think. Haymitch is my father.” _

_ “I had no idea he even had a daughter,” _ Peeta had said.

_ “He sent my mother away to Thirteen before I was born to keep us safe. I never knew what I was being kept safe from, but she always spoke so highly of him,” _ Carolina had replied. Peeta and I had only ever known the drunk that Haymitch had been all of our lives, and Carolina only knew him after she was already mostly grown. She spoke so highly of him always and adored him despite his flaws, and the more we got to know her, the more we learned how much like her father she actually was.

Carolina brought me to Peeta’s room the following day, when I was finally given permission to leave my bed. I sat in a wheelchair while she wheeled me to his room and I stood as I looked through the window at what looked to be the corpse of the man I loved and treasured more than anything. The heart monitor beside him, however, told me that his heart still beat, so despite how dead he looked, he truly was alive. He looked so mangled, covered in artificial skin created by the Capitol to heal his burns. A lot of his hair had been burned off, and it was heartbreaking to see him without his beautiful ashy blonde locks that I had fallen in love with. He hardly looked like himself, and I had to be led away in tears to keep me from distressing myself any further.

Haymitch hung around me a lot more in the days of my recovery, trying to help me find ways to entertain myself, but there was nothing that could keep my mind from going to a dark place. I missed my brother, too, but Cailean was nowhere to be found. He was uninjured in the blast, having stayed in Tigris’s shop, so I began to wonder where the hell he was. We’d both lost our brother - granted, he’d had a lifetime with Calum while I’d only had a combined total of about nine years, but Calum was still my brother, and I still loved him and mourned his loss.

“He’s just... he’s not himself,” said Carolina sadly when I asked her. “He’s not been allowing himself to mourn, so he’s keeping all of his emotions bottled up.”

“I need to talk to him,” I said to her. “Sister to brother...”

“He hasn’t wanted to see anyone,” Carolina told me.

“And I want to see no one but Peeta but I don’t have that option so he’ll either talk to me or sit there while I prattle away at him,” I replied. Carolina, being the good friend she was to both my brother and myself and holding all the love she had left for the two of us, promised me that the moment I was discharged, she would bring me to his side. I was discharged two days later, and she helped me into a car that brought us from the hospital to Snow’s mansion, where we had evidently set up camp. She led me to a room and gently tapped on the door, then opened it.

“Cailean, there’s someone here to see you,” she said, but there was no reply. Carolina simply let me into the room and closed it behind me, leaving my brother and I alone. He didn’t look up at me, seated on his bed looking dark and lonely, as I crossed the room to sit down on the bed beside him.

“Hey,” I said to him, speaking in Gàidhlig, the language that the two of us were born speaking. He didn’t answer me. “I’m not going to waste time asking how you are because I know how you are, and it’s the same way that I am. We’ve both lost our little brother... Cailean, he wouldn’t want us to lose ourselves within the dark shadows of our minds. He’d be scolding you right now for this, and me as well. He’d be so proud that you lived to see the end of the war and the beginning of the brighter days. You know what he’d say... ‘When the sun starts shining again, we’ll learn how to live’.” It was something our father used to say. Cailean remained silent, his eyes mournful and sorrowful as they stared at the dark curtains that were drawn over the window. “Speaking of the sun, it’s a beautiful day outside... Why don’t we open these windows?” I stood and crossed to the window, pulling apart the curtains and letting the sun shine through onto his depressed form on the bed. “Cailean...”

“It’s another sun that he won’t see,” Cailean replied quietly, and I sat back down beside him.

“It’s the crime of war... We’ve lost so many people, people we loved and cared about... Prim is dead, too. All those years of living together, I came to love her like my sister. We had an unbreakable bond until I broke it in a moment of selfishness, and now that bond will never be repaired.” We sat in silence for a moment, Cailean now looking down at his hands. I reached over and took them in mine, leaning against my little brother’s shoulder.

“How is he,” he whispered, referring to Peeta.

“Not very well,” I replied honestly. “His burns were so bad. They think he’ll recover, but who knows if he’ll ever be the same...”

“He will,” Cailean replied. “He’s strong... Stronger than I’ll ever be.”

“Don’t say that,” I told him, and he shrugged.

“It’s the truth. If he could, he’d be right by your side. I didn’t show up once.”

“I don’t blame you.” Another moment of silence passed between us.

“Did they tell you about Donnel?” At this, I picked my head up as he glanced at me and gently shook my head, and he let out a sigh. “He was too severely injured... asked for whatever they could salvage to be given to Peeta... He died of his injuries on the first day.” I now felt tears stinging my eyes. Peeta now had no living members of his family left - no parents, no brothers, no children. Only me. “He was so brave, Donnel. The things he did when we were out on the mission... I’ll never forget them.” It was my turn to be silent. I lost three siblings, all on the same day. Prim, Calum, Donnel. Snow really did try and take everything from me that he possibly could. “But Donnel didn’t have Peeta’s spirit. If he did, he’d still be alive now. He had some, don’t get me wrong... Perhaps he gave it all to Peeta, to help him fight to get back to you.”

“Making sure I’m taken care of, like he said,” I replied finally, and Cailean nodded.

“I don’t know what I’ll do now...” he whispered. “Calum wanted us to stay in Fourteen, but I can’t be there anymore. I don’t ever want to go back. Too many memories...”

“I understand how that feels...” I said, referring to my feelings towards District Twelve.

“And Carolina... I know she lost him too, but... she makes me think of him. Reminds me of him. I don’t want to be reminded of him...” It was then that I noticed why the curtains had been closed over the windows. It was the same reason why a blanket was draped over the mirror above the dresser. “I see him everywhere... Every time I look into a goddamn mirror, I see him, torturing me, reminding me that he isn’t here.” Calum was the mirror image of Cailean, and every time Cailean saw his reflection, he saw his twin brother.

“That isn’t his fault.”

“I know. It’s my fault for surviving.”

“It’s not your fault, either. You know who’s fault it is. You know who did all these horrible things for no reason other than he wanted to.” He was silent again.

“I heard you lost the baby,” he said suddenly, and I nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t know you knew.”

“Carolina mentioned it to me, when you were in the hospital still.” I nodded gently, quietly. “What now?”

“We live,” I replied. “We live the best lives that we can, for them. For Calum, for Prim, for Finnick, for Hadley, for Donnel...” Cinna. Portia. The people of District Twelve. Graham Leper. Zeodary Sage. The rest of the Mellark family. Agnessa. Rue. Foxface. Cato, Clove, Glimmer, Marvel, Thresh, the rest of the tributes that died over the course of the entirety of the Hunger Games. Haymitch’s family. Carolina’s mother. Our father. Our mother. Ashilda, Dòmhnall, Alasdair and Anndra. My Uncle Archie. Madge Undersee. Lucy Gray Baird. Sejanus Plinth. Wiress. Mags. Orion Wolffe, Gimm Berkeley, Kudos Pinely. Alasdair Douglas, Keeko Thorne, Fellord Hartstone. Castor. The rebels who gave their lives so that a new sun may shine on Panem. The Hawthorne family...

Gale. Someone else who hadn’t visited me. Surely, he had been released from the Peacekeepers’ grip.

Cailean nodded beside me, understanding all of the names I didn’t speak aloud. “We’ll live for them,” he told me quietly. And then we hugged, tightly. Not too tightly that he would cause me pain where the skins were covering and healing my burns, but tight enough to enforce the idea that we were finally safe.

I was assigned a room to stay in at Snow’s mansion, since I would be required to attend the next Senate meeting in a few days to represent District Twelve. Peeta was supposed to sit beside me, and I hoped and prayed to whoever listened that Peeta would be there by my side, but I knew the chances of that would be slim. There was a knock at my door, and I turned towards it. “Come in,” I said, and the door opened to reveal a very tired-looking, but with excitement, dressed in her usual Capitol garb with a brilliant blonde wig and dressed in a bright shade of mauve, Effie. “Effie...”

“Hello, my dear,” she said in a voice that told of the endless tortures she had to have endured for the last three years. I couldn’t stop myself from running to her and embracing her tightly, and she smiled and embraced me back.

“Effie, you have no idea how glad I am to see you!” I said through tears of joy, and I felt her acrylic nails brushing through my hair.

“It has certainly been a long, long time,” she said with a warm, motherly smile, pulling back from the embrace to brush a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’m so very sorry for all you have lost...” I nodded quietly, not really wanting to answer. She must have known about Calum, about Prim, about the baby. “How is he? Peeta?”

“The same as he has been,” I replied.

“Have you been to see him?” she asked me, and I nodded, then burst into tears and sobbed into her shoulder as she pulled me into another embrace.

“Oh, my poor dear,” she said as she held my sobbing, pathetic form. “I’ve heard so much from Haymitch about you two, how your love for one another blossomed from the ashes of the war. He also told me about your wedding. It’s such a shame I wasn’t invited!” At that, I couldn’t help but laugh at her attempts to cheer me up. I knew how much she would have wanted to be at our wedding, but truth to be told, I thought she had been on Snow’s side with the Capitol. The thought of her being imprisoned never crossed my mind, I’m ashamed to admit.

“I wish you could have been there, Effie. You would have loved every second of it,” I told her through tears. “Although you would have hated my dress.”

“I’m sure you looked beautiful no matter what you were wearing,” she told me warmly. I had dinner that night with her, Carolina and Haymitch, but it wasn’t the same without Peeta. Effie absolutely adored Carolina and wouldn’t stop teasing Haymitch for having it in him to have a daughter. Carolina adored her equally and the two got along like a mother and daughter almost, which got me taking a second look at Haymitch. For a long time, it seemed that he was annoyed by Effie’s presence, but as I watched him try to hide a smile behind his drink, I could see that he liked the attention that Effie was giving him. I believed that Carolina noticed it, too, as we shared a knowing glance between us and watched Effie and Haymitch teasing each other playfully. All this time, what I had thought was a bemused drunken smirk on Haymitch’s face was a hidden smile full of emotion, and I realised then that perhaps Haymitch didn’t really want to spend the rest of his life alone after all.

The nights were the worst part of my days after the rebellion came to an end. I longed for Peeta’s arms around me, holding me and keeping the nightmares away as we slept, but he was too busy fighting to stay alive. I should be by his side, I should be visiting him more, but I couldn’t bring myself to see him again. Seeing him burned and battered the way I had scared me, and although it didn’t make me love him any less, it made me afraid that Peeta was never going to be the same, that he wasn’t going to be my Peeta anymore. He’d see how dangerous life is being married to me and he’d demand a divorce or even an annulment, leaving me nothing to remember him by. A small voice inside of my head told me to stop thinking that way, that Peeta would never do such a thing and would scold me for even thinking it, but the guilt consumed me, and so did the nightmares.


	25. Chapter XXIV: A Whiter Shade of Purity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss speaks to Snow. The Senate decides on the new government of Panem.

On the second day after my release from the hospital, I went for a walk in Snow’s mansion in complete disbelief for how ridiculously ostentatious the place was. The walls were taller than a two story house easily, and everything was embellished in something fancy. Gold, drapes, portraits, plastic fruit, white roses, the works. The halls were long, there were many rooms all for a different purpose and the place reeked of Snow’s hideously-scented genetically modified white roses. I had to escape them, so I went outside into the garden, spying a greenhouse across the way. Outside of the greenhouse were two guards who were guarding the door, either keeping people out or keeping whatever was inside in. I thought it strange that a greenhouse of all places was being guarded, so curiosity got the better of me and I approached it.

“Senator Mellark,” said one of the guards, greeting me as I approached.

“Hello... Am I allowed to go in?” I asked them.

“Afraid not, ma’am,” said the other. Ma’am, as if I were middle-aged. I wanted to spit back with ‘that’s Miss to you’, but I wasn’t even that. I was married. I guess I was a ma’am.

“She’s earned the right to go in there,” I heard Commander Paylor’s voice behind me, and I turned to face her. “You might not like it, Katniss, but if you really want to see what’s in there, by all means.” I nodded as I turned back to the guards, and they stepped aside to let me inside. I stepped in, overcome by the aroma of the wretched roses as I saw them all around me. As I walked in, I could detect the faint smell of blood behind me, and suddenly, I knew what those guards were keeping in there.

“President Snow,” I said without turning around, and I heard the old man chuckle.

“I was wondering when I would be honoured by your company, Mrs. Mellark,” he said back to me as I turned to face him. He was as vile and as snakelike as ever, but he didn’t appear as strong as he once was. He looked weakened, weaker than I had ever seen him. He coughed into a handkerchief in his hand, and I could see a spot of red on it.

“You’re dying,” I said suddenly, the medic in me searching for a cure. I knew what was ailing him. The poison was catching up to him.

“So it seems,” he replied. “But I suppose, as many would say, I died a long time ago. Miss Maude Ivory must have told you that.”

“She mentioned something like that,” I said back.

“How is your husband?”

“Not very well. He was burned pretty badly, but they said he’ll recover.” Why was he making such ridiculous small talk?

“I am sorry that I never extended my congratulations on your marriage. A match made in Heaven.” He paused for a moment to cough into the handkerchief again. “So here you are, among my roses. Katniss Everdeen... Katniss Fòlais... Katniss Mellark. You know, these very roses are genetically modified.”

“It certainly smells like it.” He chuckled again with amusement.

“Yes, the scent is strong, and for good reason. I wear them to hide the smell of blood in my mouth from the sores that Mr. Odair told you and all of Panem about. These roses were modified from the same ones that grew on my grandmother’s rooftop in her penthouse apartment in the Capitol. White is a pure colour, the purest a colour can be.” He smiled at me. “I was poor once. I know what it is like to starve and not know where my next meal was coming from. It is for that reason that the people in the Capitol never wanted for food.”

“But the districts did.”

“I never starved the districts.”

“You turned a blind eye. That’s just as bad as starving the districts.” He chuckled again.

“Mrs. Mellark, you have a quick tongue. By the way, I am very sorry to hear about your brother and sister.”

“It was you that killed them. Your mutts killed my brother, your bomb killed my sister, and dozens of other children who didn’t deserve it.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, Mrs. Mellark. I don’t waste life. I kill with reason, and I had no reason to kill dozens of innocent children no more than I had reason to kill your sister. It was a clever ploy by the rebels designed to turn even my loyal Peacekeepers against me, and it worked. I am genuinely very sorry it happened.”

“So if it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

“Who would use such an excellent tactic to turn my own people against me?” My stomach dropped at the realisation. Gale. He gave the order. He’d whispered it beside me. He’d confessed to giving it. Gale killed Prim. Gale killed Donnel. Gale killed all of those innocent children. Gale hurt and damaged my Peeta so badly that he would hate me and never want to see me again. Gale was the reason the rebels took over Snow’s mansion. It was Gale. “Mrs. Mellark, I do have one final question for you.” I turned to look at him. “Do you want to kill me?”

Was this man, this murderer who took so many lives, who killed for sport, who tortured people for no reason other than pleasure, asking me if I wanted to kill him? I couldn’t stop my answer before it came tumbling out. “No.”

“And why not?”

“Because I want the violence to end. I want the killing to stop. I don’t want any more blood on my hands,” I said firmly, believing fully in my words. “I don’t want to kill you, I want you to sit and rot along with the old Panem you created and your damned Games. You already lived a long and full life, so there’s no point in killing you, not when you’ll be dead soon anyway.” I started to stalk out of the greenhouse.

“Give my best wishes to your husband,” he called after me. I couldn’t stand the smell of the roses any longer, I thought I would vomit at the thought of them. The Senate meeting would be at noon, and when I left the greenhouse, it was a quarter to, so I made my way to the President’s meeting room and scanned over everyone who was there. Aristotle Archer and Prodigy Prelius from District One. Magnow Rose and Lenerok Kifflin from District Two. Beetee Latier and Dravius Pillock from District Three. Annie Cresta-Odair, taking Finnick’s place, and Chase Winters from District Four. Odeon Avisdee and Clarabella Dustin from District Five. Ellorah Harpernet and Gladius Firk from District Six. Johanna Mason and Jonny Woodstock from District Seven. Karis Paylor and Zosia Verity from District Eight. Pascasia Mazarinne and Tremor Ureon from District Nine. Lystra Eshwater and Rufus Ripley from District Ten. Cytherea Lewes and Kypp Jecker from District Eleven. The two seats for District Twelve remained unoccupied. Gale and Cailean, representing District Thirteen. Carolina and Weaver Redstone representing District Fourteen. Also present was Effie, who would be there to give a voice to the Capitol.

Annie looked sullen and sad, but somewhat normal. A week ago, she had been in a horrible state, but had come out of it just in time to take her deceased husband’s place in making a decision for the future of Panem. Cailean looked sad, but was standing in for his brother doing something that mattered to Calum. Gale had a sullen look on his face, too, and I was grateful that Cailean would be sitting between us. As soon as I walked into the room, the chatter at the table stopped, and one by one, each senator stood and gave me the traditional District Twelve three finger salute of respect. I acknowledged it with a nod, then sat down in my seat between the empty seat that belonged to Peeta and the seat that Cailean was occupying. I refused to look at Gale, who was equally refusing to look at me.

“Where’s Peeta?” I asked my brother, who shrugged. My question was answered when the door opened and in stepped Haymitch, who stood to address the room.

“Senator Peeta Mellark will not be joining us today as he still ain’t well enough to do so, so I will be stepping in as Senator for District Twelve,” he announced, and my heart fell. Part of me wanted so badly to see Peeta again at this meeting, but another part of me was glad I wouldn’t be. I felt my brother’s gentle touch on my arm in support as Haymitch made it to his seat. “I would also like to introduce Senator Annie Odair, who will be stepping in for her husband, and Senator Cailean Fòlais, who will be stepping in for his brother. Both Finnick Odair and Calum Fòlais gave their lives fighting for the rebellion, as Senators Mellark, Hawthorne, Abernathy and Fòlais can attest.” Haymitch then sat down beside me.

“Will we have an advisor with us today?” asked Senator Dustin.

“What do we need an advisor for? We won. Now we’re buildin’ the government up from scratch,” Haymitch replied.

“Very well,” said Senator Dustin, and she turned to address the table. “I propose the first question that I am sure is on all of our minds tonight: What do we do with President Snow? President Snow is currently being held prisoner and we must decide our next course of action with him.”

“Public execution,” said Johanna. “He sent us all to a similar fate. Why don’t we send him to one?”

“I second that,” said Gale. Of course he would. Not only because he was fucking Johanna, but he also loved violence.

“Excellent. Is there anyone opposed to this suggestion?” asked Senator Dustin, and my hand raised into the air. All the eyes of the Senate were on me and Haymitch looked at me with an expression of surprise on his face. “May I ask the reason for your opposition, Senator Mellark?”

“We’ve done enough killing. Isn’t that what this rebellion was for? To stop killing?” I asked.

“He killed so many people, Katniss. He deserves to die for his crimes,” Gale said to me, and I shot a glare at him.

“It’s what he wants. He wants us to kill him. He wants us to publicly execute him, because he wants us to be just like him. He wants us to behave like he believes people do, through chaos and disorder. And he wants us to execute any high ranking officials who had a hand in the Games as well. Why should we give him the satisfaction? Let the man rot in a cell for whatever’s left of his life, he won’t live long,” I said.

“I agree with Senator Mellark’s statement,” said Senator Jecker.

“I second that, Senator Jecker,” said Senator Paylor.

“All for the public execution of Coriolanus Snow?” asked Senator Dustin, and several hands went in the air. Johanna, Gale, both Districts One and Two, Senator Dustin, Senator Mazarinne and Senator Harpernet all raised their hands. Ten hands, out of twenty eight. “And all against?” The remaining eighteen hands went into the air. “Very well, let it be set into motion that Coriolanus Snow will be imprisoned for his crimes for the remainder of his life, however long or short that may be. Senator Mellark, bear in mind that you must prepare a lengthy speech to satisfy the people of Panem. They are craving Snow’s blood.”

“I will gladly, Senator Dustin,” I replied.

“May I propose the next question?” asked Senator Firk. “What about the high-ranking officials that Senator Mellark mentioned? Should they be executed or imprisoned?”

“I am with Senator Mellark on the belief that it is unnecessary,” said Senator Jecker, always in agreement with me.

“But they are not Snow. There ought to be some executions,” said Senator Kifflin.

“If we aren’t making Snow pay for his crimes in blood, then we should make someone else do it,” Johanna hissed.

“All for the execution of the high-ranking officials?” asked Senator Firk. Fifteen hands went up this time, and mine wasn’t one of them. “And all opposed?” The remaining thirteen were raised.

“At least try them, first!” Carolina exclaimed, having been one of the thirteen that opposed. “We don’t know how many of them held those jobs to protect their families.”

“The people of the Capitol were raised the way they were, the same way that we were raised the way we were. It isn’t fair to expect them to know any better when this is all they have been taught,” I chimed in.

“Very well said, Katniss!” exclaimed Effie, who represented the Capitol.

“All for a trial?” asked Firk, and now at least twenty hands went into the air. “And all opposed.” Only four hands were raised, which meant that twenty-four people were for a trial before execution.

“Let it be set in motion that high-ranking officials then will be tried and, if found guilty, will be executed,” said Senator Dustin, and this time, my hand shot in the air.

“I have a proposal in regards to the trials,” I said, and all eyes were trained on me. “We the Senate should not also be the judges. I propose that each district in addition to the Capitol have a judge representing them and it will be that court of judges that perform trials.”

“I believe that to be a very clever idea,” said Senator Prelius. “I will not deny that when it comes to gamemakers, I will be too biased in my opinion to commit to a fair trial. All trials should be judged with no bias, regardless of the person being tried. It’s only right. They might have done awful things, but they’re still human, not animals.”

“I am in agreement with Senator Prelius,” said Senator Archer.

“All for Senator Mellark’s proposal of each district and the Capitol presenting a judge for trials?” asked Senator Dustin. All twenty-eight hands were raised. “Then let it be set in motion, by unanimous vote, that each district and the Capitol will provide a judge to perform trials.”

“I have a proposal,” said Gale suddenly, drawing my attention to him. “We should hold a symbolic Hunger Games with the children of high ranking officials.” There was an audible gasp from Annie, and a few people sent glares his way.

“After all we’ve been through, you want to host  _ another _ Hunger Games?” I demanded of him, and he ignored me as he defended his decision.

“It’ll be a way to satisfy the people’s thirst for blood, since we decided we’re not killing Snow,” he replied.

“Why not? Snow has a granddaughter. If we aren’t making Snow pay with his own blood, then we’ll make him pay with his granddaughter’s.”

“We just fought a war to put an end to the Hunger Games and you want to start them up again? What makes us any better than Snow if we do that?” I demanded again.

“I could never agree to such a thing! And Finnick wouldn’t either, if he was here!” Annie exclaimed.

“Peeta wouldn’t, either,” said Haymitch, resulting in a glare from Gale.

“The Games took everything from me, as well as many of us. I want to see the Games take away everything from the people who created them,” Gale said without looking at me.

“The Games took nothing from you, Snow did. The Games have nothing to do with what you lost,” I said.

“You know what the Games took from me,” he said, finally meeting my eye.

“You killed my sister,” I said back, calmer than I would have thought, and Senator Dustin cleared her throat.

“Please settle your affairs after the meeting, Senators Mellark and Hawthorne,” she said, and then she turned to address the table with a slight tone of disgust in her voice. “All for this ‘symbolic’ Hunger Games?” Gale’s hand went up, as did Johanna’s and the hands of both Senators Rose and Kifflin. “All opposed?” The rest of us raised our hands. “There will be  _ no _ symbolic Hunger Games.”

“We must now approach the subject of leadership,” said Senator Archer. “Do we wish for the Senate to continue leading the people of Panem?”

“I think like with the image of the Mockingjay, we need to have someone be the face of Panem. They will make executive decisions and be kept in check by the Senate, and they will be voted for by the people of Panem,” suggested Senator Avisdee.

“I believe that to be an excellent idea,” said Senator Ureon.

“I second that notion,” said Senator Verity.

“I nominate Senator Paylor for President,” I said suddenly, quieting the room, and Senator Paylor looked at me first, and then at the people who were watching her.

“I also nominate Senator Paylor,” said Senator Jecker.

“I don’t believe the Senate should be responsible for nominating people for President,” said Senator Paylor nervously. “I believe that the President should be voted for by the people only, and the role of President is not a lifelong role, but instead, a temporary role, with elections every few years.”

“Perhaps another rule should be that they have to have had spent time representing their district in the Senate,” said Senator Eshwater.

“How does a term of four years sound? That was how they did it once in the days before Panem,” suggested Gale. “The candidates run for President and are voted for by the people, and then when those four years are up, they can run again but in order to be President for another four years, they have to be re-elected, and they can’t run for President again for more than two terms.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” said Senator Archer.

“What about the Senate? Do we have terms?” asked Senator Prelius.

“In the old days, senators held their position for six years and were elected by the people every six years. Unlike the position of the President, they could continue to run for a position in the senate basically until they decided not to or died, whichever came first,” said Gale.

“Basic democracy,” said Cailean. “I like the idea of implementing elections so that the people are selecting who they want to represent them.”

“Perhaps, then, when these decisions are made, we should hold an election for the Senate in a year, to give the country time to settle down and get people back into their homes,” said Senator Dustin. “Until then, the Senate remains as it is, unless Senator Paylor does indeed decide to run for President.”

“I second that decision,” said Senator Rose.

“I believe that the Capitol should be allowed two senators, same as every district,” I said.

“I second that,” said Senator Lewes.

“All in favour of the government that we have formed today? Of a President who is elected every four years and cannot run for more than two terms, or a Senate made up of senators who are elected every six years and can run to be re-elected every term, of the Capitol receiving two seats on the Senate?” asked Senator Dustin, and all twenty-eight hands shot into the air. Another unanimous decision. “Senators Paylor and Mellark, at your victory speech to the country with Commanders Jackson and Lyme, you should present the decisions that have been made here today in the Senate of Panem. Tell the people of the new government that we have created and how every citizen of Panem will be given a voice.”

“I guess that’s meeting adjourned then,” said Haymitch proudly. The Senate had finally created the new government that would rule Panem for as long as it exists, based off of an old system that worked until the planet tore itself apart in natural disasters. At four o’clock, which was in an hour and a half, the four commanders of the Siege of the Capitol would give a victory speech, and I was expected to give one, too. I wish that I had been the one who was so badly injured that I couldn’t leave the hospital because Peeta was the one who was better versed in language, while I was always more of a woman of action. But Peeta was right when he said I was getting better with my words - I suppose he truly was rubbing off on me. As the Senate dispersed, Gale caught my arm as I was about to leave the room.

“I didn’t kill her,” he hissed at me, gripping my arm a little too tightly.

“It was your bomb that killed her,” I told him. “Your bomb that was set off upon your orders. You might not have killed her physically, but you might as well have.” I yanked my arm from his hand. “I don’t ever want to see you again.” I walked quickly away from him, trying desperately to just get back to my room to hide away from everything. I had hardly had the chance to mourn for Prim, but I didn’t think I could shed any more tears. I cried for Peeta, I cried for my lost child, I shed a few tears for Calum, but my eyes were dry, all of my tears having been used up. Perhaps, when they replenished, I would cry for her someday, but for now, I just couldn’t. The tears just wouldn’t come.

Suddenly, there was a knock at my door and I lifted my tearless face from the pillow as it opened and Haymitch walked in. “You haven’t been to see the boy,” he told me.

“How did you-”

“The nurses who have been treatin’ him say they ain’t seen ya since you were in a wheelchair. That was easily a week ago. You ain’t been to see him since,” he told me.

“Haymitch, I  _ can’t. _ I  _ can’t  _ see him, not like that,” I said, feeling a sob in my throat but being unable to produce tears.

“He’d never leave your side if it was you layin’ there instead of him,” he said harshly. “He’s awake now, been up since last night. He’s askin’ for ya, and you’re gonna go see him.”

“I just can’t...”

“You’re goin’. I ain’t takin’ no for an answer. After your grand speech tonight.” He then shut the door, and I buried my face in my pillow. I had a speech to prepare for, but I felt that I needed more time to prepare for seeing Peeta.


	26. Chapter XXV: Clouds From Both Sides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss addresses the nation at the Victory Speech. She also sees Peeta for the first time since the end of the war and struggles with her mental health.

I had scribbled down some important things to say on notecards that I held in my shaking hands as I prepared to go onstage. We were told to dress formally, as we didn’t exactly have an official military uniform for commanders to wear. Commanders Paylor, Jackson and Lyme wore pantsuits, while I wore a peach-coloured dress with my brown curls hung loose around my face. Effie had insisted on the dress, considering I would be seeing Peeta afterwards. “He’d love to see you looking beautiful in his favourite colour,” she told me softly, her Capitol accent having not faded one bit.

“He’d be happy to see her stark naked if that’s how she chose to go,” said Haymitch with amusement, and Effie shot him a glare while she did my hair.

“You stop that, Haymitch! Our Katniss is going to look beautiful for all of Panem but most importantly, for our Peeta,” she replied, curling a piece of my hair.

I stood on the stage on Commander Paylor’s left, and she stood between myself and Commander Lyme. Commander Jackson was up first, giving a speech thanking the men and women of her unit who gave their lives fighting for the rebellion by name, and also taking the time to name all the rebel soldiers who died in the siege. I could feel my stomach tying itself in knots at the mentions of Finnick Odair, Calum Fòlais and Donnel Mellark. And then it was Commander Lyme’s turn to speak. She also thanked those in her unit by name, as well as honoured those in her unit who died, and she thanked each individual district and Senator for their support in the rebellion.

And then, it was Commander Paylor. Commander Paylor would be the one to announce the new government as a representative of the Senate, and the people of Panem cheered at the mention of the new government. They also cheered when Commander Paylor announced that she would be running for President, and it seemed obvious that Commander Paylor had a lot of support among the people of Panem, even from the people in the Capitol. The Capitol people loved that there would be two Capitol senators but were dissatisfied with the idea that they wouldn’t be allowed their position on the Senate until the Senate Elections in a year.

And then, it was my turn. With my notecards in hand, I stepped forward and up to the microphone. It reminded me of how I once gave small speeches in each of the districts on the Victory Tour, now three and a half years ago, when I held Effie’s notecards in my hand and had to stick to them to avoid causing an uprising in Panem. The heat of the August sun beat down on me and reminded me of how I failed as the heat brought out the pain from the burns beneath the artificial Capitol skins that were covering them. On a rather large screen above my head, I looked relatively unscathed and the image of perfection, all of my scars hidden beneath makeup, just like the way the Capitol had once wanted me to appear. I cleared my throat and looked down at the cards in my hands once more and then I sighed - I couldn't stick to the cards. I could never stick to the damn cards. I bunched them up in one hand and brought my hands to my sides.

“Hello, people of Panem,” I said finally. “I am Katniss Mellark, Senator, Commander, tribute in the Third Quarter Quell and Victor of the 74th Hunger Games... I will start out by giving my thanks to the people who so bravely were a part of my unit as we converged on the Capitol in the final days of the rebellion. Those who are still with me today are Cressida Dubrow and Pollux Chatham, who provided video footage of the Siege that you all saw before we began to speak. I thank them both for their bravery, as they were non-combative, yet had to engage in combat when the dangers became too much. Carolina Abernathy, who I am privileged to call my dear friend, who was not assigned to a unit to converge on the Capitol but so bravely volunteered. Cailean Fòlais, my little brother, who was responsible for much of the technology both in combat and in medicine that we utilised throughout the rebellion. Gale Hawthorne, who was responsible for the success of the final capture of the President’s Mansion. And finally... Peeta Mellark, my husband, who so bravely co-commanded our unit by my side, who cannot be here with us today due to the extensive injuries he received from his brave actions during the final capture of the Mansion.” I paused at the mention of Peeta’s name, feeling a knot in my throat. I swallowed it down and continued on.

“I also must give thanks to those of my unit who so bravely gave their lives protecting those of us who survived, and gave their lives fighting for the rebellion. Castor Chatham, Graham Leper, Zeodary Sage, Hadley Walker, Donnel Mellark... Finnick Odair... and Calum Fòlais. All of them died to protect those of us who survived. Our unit was hit the hardest with tragedy due to the simple fact that your much beloved Mockingjay was leading the team. President Snow couldn’t resist trying to kill me, but thanks to the bravery of those who did not live to see the end of the rebellion, Snow’s efforts were in vain. I will forever be grateful for the sacrifices they made, that allowed me to stand before you today.” I paused again, swallowing another knot in my throat.

“I am sure that you all want to know what is to be done with our former President Snow, and listen very closely to what I have to say, because it is my understanding that the people of Panem may not be happy with the decision that the Senate has come to regarding his fate,” I continued, and there was a little bit of uproar and I paused to let it die out. “The question was posed of whether or not Snow should be executed for his crimes, and while much of the Senate was for the public execution of Snow, however... it was I who brought up opposition, and the reasoning was that killing Coriolanus Snow would be giving him an easy way out of his crimes. He is an old man, and while he seemed to act as if he were a god, he is no less human than either you or me. His life, like ours, is only temporary, and he will die soon while having to live with the guilt of his actions. Death is the easy way out, and Coriolanus Snow does not deserve an easy escape from the crimes he has committed.” I paused again while I waited for the response of the people, but they were eerily silent. I continued on.

“High-ranking officials will be tried and, if found guilty of their crimes, will be publicly executed. It is not known who was acting out of malice, and who was acting out of fear for the families or their own lives. The truth shall be uncovered in a series of trials that will take place soon, when judges from each district are selected by the people. Until then, they remain imprisoned in the same cells that they imprisoned us in.” Another pause.

“Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to the people of Panem for their endless fighting spirits. It is the spirit of revolution and the desire for freedom that gave us the Panem that we have now created, born from the ashes of a dying world that we have extinguished. We have fought for peace, and now the bloodshed is over. There will be no more blood on our hands, and there will be no more blood spilled.” I paused as I switched gears. “No one ever failed to remind me of how young I was, and how young so many of the people who were fighting for their freedom were. Not many of us in the districts had the privilege of living such long lives, so many of us were so young. I was sixteen years old when I was reaped for the 74th Annual Hunger Games. I was seventeen when I was rescued from the arena during the Third Quarter Quell. I was eighteen when I commanded my first mission throughout the districts, and I did that until I was twenty. I am twenty years old now, and I have helped lead a rebellion that brought about a change to the world that we all so desperately wanted to see. I will close my speech with this statement. It comes from a speech given during a time of revolution and civil unrest in the country that used to occupy the land that Panem now is, now two centuries ago.” I cleared my throat one final time.

“Rebellions are born in the heart of the young, who fight for the futures of their children, their grandchildren, and every generation beyond. Those of us who fight know that we may not live to reap the fruits of our victories, but we know that someday, the world may be a better place for the future generations. We fight not for us, but for them. Revolution is in the hands of the young, and the young will always inherit the revolution.”

I paused for effect one final time, in a way that Peeta might have. “Thank you, all of you, and welcome to the future of the new Panem.” As I left my position at the microphone, the people of Panem cheered, and many of them gave the three-fingered salute. I sat back down as someone else took over the microphone for some closing words, but I wasn’t paying attention to who that was. My mind was elsewhere now, and my stomach had butterflies in it. Now that my speech was over, I had to face the next biggest thing that scared me - Peeta.

My mental state was destroyed after the war ended. I may have appeared fine and well on the outside, but inside, I was at a constant war with myself, and it got worse and worse with every passing day. I hated myself and what I had become, what the war had made me. I had never been the peace-preaching, violence-hating, passionate woman that I am today, but I suppose three years of what felt to be an endless, violent, bloody war really does take its toll on a person. I wanted to cry for Calum, for Donnel and for Prim, but the tears refused to come. I wanted to cry for the emptiness inside of me, but my eyes remained dry. I wanted to run to Peeta, to throw my arms around him and bury my face in his chest and sob uncontrollably while he comforted me, but the little demon that the war had planted inside of my head told me that I wasn’t allowed to be loved or wanted, that Peeta would never love or want me again. That as soon as he saw me, he would turn me away and call me horrible, disgusting things. I almost had it in me to get up and run away, get on a train and run off to some distant district to start my life over again, but I had debated the thought in my head for too long. I saw a shadow eclipse the sun and when I looked up, Haymitch was standing in front of me.

“Come on, sweetheart. Time to go and see the boy,” he told me. He offered his arm to me respectfully, not knowing of the unseen war that was raging inside of me, and led me to a black car that waited in the street. The ride to the hospital took ten minutes, and with every step I took towards Peeta’s room, I shook more and more, until Haymitch stopped me and put a hand over mine. “The hell are you so scared for? The boy loves you, you know that,” he told me firmly, but the fear in my eyes told him that I couldn’t understand his words. “If I didn’t think seein’ him was good for you, I wouldn’t be makin’ you do it. Once you get a look at the boy and how much better he’s doin’, all this fear will drain out of you and you’ll be laughin’ at how ridiculous you’re bein’ right now.” I hoped he was right. His words were enough for me to calm and compose myself for a moment, but only until he led me into Peeta’s room and I saw him lying on his bed.

This room was different from the last one. It was more like the hospital room that I had stayed in, only a little bigger. He was no longer in isolation. His skin looked much better, that much was true, and his hair was starting to grow back, but he had a lot of bandages on his head, so it was hard to tell for sure. His eyes were closed, and for a moment, I thought he was dead, but the steady rise and fall of his chest that matched the steady beep of the monitor told me that he was just sleeping. Something was different about him - not the burns, not the lack of hair, not all the tubes sticking out of him, but something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on. My eyes fell to the blankets that he lay under, and as I noticed an imbalance in Peeta’s form beneath the blankets, I heard him whisper my name.

“Katniss...” I looked up into his face just in time to see his blue eyes flutter open, and he smiled at me in the only way he could. It was filled with pain, but he couldn’t feel an ounce of it, not with all the morphling they were pumping into him. “Hey...”

“Hi,” I said back, stuttering slightly. Haymitch stood by the door while I stood about two feet from the foot of Peeta’s bed watching him, fear etched on my face. I couldn’t see him like this. He looked so broken, so beaten, so hurt. How dare he mock me with that smile on his face? He hated me, he didn’t want to see me, not really. He only called me here to tell me how much he hated me for killing his family, for nearly killing him, for killing the only brother he had left, and he was going to do it in front of Haymitch to humiliate me more. The demonic voice inside of my head wouldn’t let up today, especially not with Peeta right in front of me.

“I saw your speech,” he said sleepily, his voice filled with warmth. “You looked incredible up there... Everything you said was incredible. You’re such an incredible person. I am so proud of you.” He was clearly speaking through a drug-induced state, and he reached out a hand to me. “Come here...” I shook my head fearfully, quickly. “Katniss, please...”

“Go to him, sweetheart,” said Haymitch, but I just couldn’t bring myself to reach for Peeta’s outstretched hand. His eyes looked sad as I failed to take his hand and I could have sworn I saw a tear forming at his eye.

“I can’t,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone else in the room.

“Katniss-” Haymitch began, taking a step towards me, but I cut him off.

“I can’t! I can’t! I’m sorry, but I can’t!” I screeched, and I pushed past him and ran for the door, disappearing down the corridor before Haymitch could call for someone to stop me. I had to get out of here, out of Peeta’s room, out of the hospital, out of the goddamn Capitol. I had to escape, but where to? Where was a place that I could go to hide? And suddenly, I knew where...

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

Why wouldn’t she take my hand? Why would she run away like that? Was the extent of my injuries too hideous for her to bear? I called after her as she ran, but she disappeared, and when Haymitch returned, there were tears streaming down my cheeks. “Why doesn’t she want me?” I moaned through tears, and Haymitch pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to me to wipe my eyes with.

“She ain’t been the best mentally, not since... well, you know. The kid, her sister, her brother,  _ your _ brother,” Haymitch replied, and I nodded in understanding. “She’ll come around. Once she calms down, I’ll make sure she gets the help she needs and then, you two can have your happy ending.” He wasn’t mocking me like he usually was, not was he mocking Katniss. In his voice was actual sorrow, laced with sympathy and he gave off a fatherly aura. I gave a gentle smile in response and nodded.

“Please. Whatever she needs, make sure she gets it. And if that means I have to stay away for a little while, then I will,” I said back. As much as it hurt me that Katniss didn’t want to be around me, I couldn’t blame her after everything she went through. She easily lost everyone she loved and cared about. Prim, Calum, even Donnel, the baby, almost me... but what about Gale? Did she lose Gale? When I was watching a recap of the Senate meeting that Haymitch had attended in my place (he made sure I saw what took place there since I had to resume my position as soon as I was able) I watched as she hissed at Gale about him killing Prim. I didn’t know what that meant, but the hateful look in her eye told me that Gale was most definitely no longer a concern, not that he ever really had been before. “Haymitch,” I said before he left, and he turned back to face me. “Does she know about...”

“No. Let’s not shock her too much in one day,” he told me. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you soon.” He then left, leaving me to my thoughts. Part of me was glad she didn’t know yet, but at the same time, I didn’t want to shock her when she eventually did find out.

My lower right leg. When the second set of parachutes went off, there was one lying close enough to me to blast my lower right leg off. Originally it had just been my foot, but there was so much extensive damage and so many burns that they ended up amputating it about halfway down my shin. I could still feel it sometimes. Sometimes it itched, and sometimes it ached, but I knew they were only phantom sensations. The leg wasn’t there anymore, so there was no way that I could feel those things there anymore.

Despite all of the morphling coursing through my veins, nothing could stop the heartache and the pain from loneliness. I longed for Katniss, wanted so badly to hold her and kiss her and comfort her, wipe away her tears and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that she didn’t have to be strong because I was going to be strong for her. But I couldn’t even do that. I had woken up only last night and learned that the rebellion had been over for almost a week and a half by now, and that we had won. I blacked out in a world led by a man who clearly hated his people and wanted to hurt them, and I woke up in a world where I could finally breathe. But Katniss wasn’t by my side, and that made my heart ache.

Donnel, too, was dead. My brother, the only surviving member of my family left. He died protecting me, throwing himself over me when the bomb went off. I lost my foot, he lost both of his legs. I was knocked unconscious and evidently, he didn’t stop calling for help until it came and his last words were him begging the doctors to salvage whatever they could from him and give it to me. Some of the skin grafts I was given came from him, after he died. I was literally wearing my brother like a shirt. I felt sick thinking about it.

And then the baby. Poor little Lark, or Donald, who never had a chance to live. Part of me was angry with myself for allowing Katniss to come to the Capitol. If I hadn’t, she wouldn’t be so afraid of me and the baby would still be living. Or the clump of cells. I suppose she was hardly far enough along for the baby to really have had a chance. Had she been seven months into her pregnancy, it could have been different, but she was hardly over a month. It wouldn’t have been fair for me to say no to Katniss coming here anyway, I knew how frustrated she was with not having been in Two when the Nut was taken.

Haymitch came back several hours later with Carolina in tow and she sat down beside me to take my hand. The sweet, serene look on her face couldn’t hide the sadness in her eyes, nor could it hide the bad news she was about to tell me. “Hi, Peeta,” she said with that fake smile.

“What happened,” I demanded, and I looked up at Haymitch, who let out a sigh.

“We don’t know where your crazy wife went,” he said.

“Dad! She’s not crazy!” Carolina hissed at him, and she turned back to me, trying to soothe the panicked look on my face. “Peeta, it’s okay. She’s not in her room and she’s not anywhere we’d normally be able to find her. No one seems to have seen her either, but we’re going to find her. I’m sure you can imagine how difficult of a time she’s going through...”

“We all are,” said Haymitch bitterly. “The whole damn world just changed and she thinks she’s gonna get any sympathy for being a little fucked up?”

“ _ Dad! _ ” Carolina hissed at him.

“I lost everything important to me! My mother, my sisters, both of the women I loved, and even you, Carolina! And not to mention every boy and girl I sent to their deaths every year for twenty-four years. You have no idea what that’s like. I ain’t got sympathy for the girl. Everyone lost someone,” Haymitch spat back.

“Dad, she’s twenty years old, she just lost two brothers and a sister, her husband nearly died, she just found out that her best friend’s bomb was the one that killed her sister and nearly killed her husband, she’s being expected to lead the world into a new future and while doing all of that, she suffered a miscarriage, which if you didn’t know, takes a massive toll on the body!” Carolina snapped at him. “And not to mention the horrible things that happened to her when she was only a child... The loss of her entire family, being forced into a new identity speaking a language she never spoke, finding out that every year from the ages of twelve and eighteen, she could get selected to compete in a death match for her life! The psychological trauma that she experienced as a child could be tearing her apart right now and yet, here you are, bitching and moaning about how ‘everyone lost someone’. Yes, Dad, we  _ know _ ! But just because everyone lost someone doesn’t mean that her pain doesn’t matter!” At that, Haymitch shut up, seemingly stunned into silence and having not expected that from the meek and friendly Carolina, and then she turned to face me. “We’ll find her, Peeta, and we’ll get her help. I promised you before that I would help keep her safe and that promise didn’t end just because the rebellion ended.”

“Thank you,” I said to her, and she smiled warmly at me, then stood.

“Come on, Dad, I have some ideas of where she might have gone and that requires checking some cameras,” she said, and she left, Haymitch following behind her.

Wherever my Katniss was, I reached out to her in my thoughts, begging her to remember the love I felt for her and sending her a warm embrace to keep her safe from whatever horrors invaded her mind. The one thing they don’t tell you about being strong is that you don’t have time to break down when everything becomes too difficult, so it eats you alive until it overwhelms you and breaks you. The strong don’t like to be seen as weak, so they hide it away until it bursts out, unwilling to be hidden any longer. In Katniss’s case, she had been so strong for twelve years, and the hardest, scariest parts of her life that were hiding in the deepest, darkest crevices of her mind had broken out and were consuming her.

* * *

**HAYMITCH POV**

* * *

That crazy kid. That crazy fuckin’ kid. What the hell did she think she was doing, running off like that? That boy needed her and she ran away to hide in her own sorrows. I guess I shoulda taken Carolina’s words to heart. She was right, Katniss had gone through so much shit in her life that it was no surprise that her mind broke down. Mine did, a long time ago, and here I was bein’ some damn hypocrite tellin’ her she couldn’t do it. I broke down because I didn’t have the support I needed to cope with my demons, and now she’s done the same. And I was part of the cause.

I’d come to view Katniss and Peeta as my own kids, even if they didn’t view me as a father figure. After mentoring them through the Games and them both somehow surviving against all odds, I felt that I finally had a bit of family, only for it to be ripped away again at the mention of the Quarter Quell. Ah, Snow, that son of a bitch... still punishing me for my actions in my Games. How did I know I wasn’t supposed to use that weird ass fuckin’ antigravity cliff to my advantage? There weren’t supposed to be any rules in the arena.

There weren’t any rules to life, neither. Most of us blindly follow government laws whether they’re fair or not, and that’s what the people of Panem did for seventy-five years, until Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark came along. Those two kids, the spark of the rebellion... They sparked it together, the perfect combination to light a powder keg. A girl who would do anything to survive and a boy who loved her and would do anything for her. They were so broken, both of ‘em, but they had each other. When they finally fell in love, I was so happy for both of ‘em, but sad also, knowing how miserable their lives were going to be with the Capitol breathin’ down their damn necks. I think I realised it before they did. I knew about the boy’s feelings, but seein’ ‘em interact on the Victory Tour, when the girl’s eyes started lookin’ at him when she thought he couldn’t see with the same look that he gave her, I knew that they were doomed. Doomed to a fate of fallin’ in love, a danger to one another. Snow wasn’t wrong about love bein’ a weakness. He used it against me to break me, too. But love is a strong and powerful bond that can’t be broken by anyone except who that bond connects. The Capitol could take ‘em and do whatever he wanted to ‘em, but if they continued to have the strength to hold that love that they shared, that bond would never break.

But now, I was worried the girl was gonna break it. She seemed so afraid of him. Why? I don’t fuckin’ know. She couldn’t get enough of the boy until the damn war came to an end. I didn’t know what demons rattled around in her head, but whatever they were, they were tryin’ to convince her that she didn’t love him, or that he didn’t love her. Nothin’ could be farther from the truth. Carolina and I were checkin’ leftover surveillance cameras throughout the Capitol and we found one of a train platform in the Capitol and I saw the girl, peach dress hangin’ loose on her and sweetly curled hair now a mess, waiting on the platform for the arrival of the train. It arrived, she got on, and it departed.

“Check all of the platforms in all the other districts,” ordered Carolina to the guy watchin’ the cameras. “Keep an eye on them, for the next few days.”

“I know where she’s goin’,” I said suddenly, and Carolina looked at me, bearing the same blue eyes I had - the same blue eyes that once belonged to my mother. “When’s the next train to District Twelve leave?”

Later that day, about an hour before the next train bound for Twelve left, I went to see the boy again. It was obvious he’d been cryin’ all day from the red puffiness of his eyes, but he tried his best to hide it. Even at his weakest, he still wanted to be the strong one. “She’s in Twelve, or goin’ to it,” I told him.

“She is?” he said, his face lighting up, and I nodded. “As soon as they let me out of here, I’m going straight to her-” I held up a hand to stop him.

“Ah, ah, ah... Boy, you got a long road to recovery ahead of you. You gotta get fit for a prosthetic and you also gotta learn how to walk on it, not to mention you still got a ton of burns that need to heal before that can even be done. And now that Crazy’s run off, they wanna do a mental examination on ya,” I told him, interrupting him, and the smile on his face faded. Poor, poor kid.

“I can’t take this anymore, Haymitch,” he told me with annoyance, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I know, kid, I know. Look, I’m goin’ to Twelve in an hour. I’ve had her declared mentally unstable so she legally can’t leave and I’ll do what I can to get her the help she needs, but I can’t promise nothin’. That girl’s stubborn and you know it,” I replied, and he let out a soft chuckle.

“I don’t understand why she went to Twelve. She was talking about going to Four and wanting to move there,” the boy told me, and I shrugged.

“She knows Twelve. Maybe a familiar place is what she needed in whatever mental episode she had,” I told him. “Rest up. The more you rest, the faster you’ll get better, and get back to us quickly. I can only stand her for so long by myself.” I left the poor kid to rest and within an hour, I was off to Twelve. It’s a couple days’ journey from the Capitol to Twelve so I indulged myself in a good drink before I had to face that stubborn nut job that the poor boy was head over heels for. She couldn’t have been back more than a day before me so when I arrived, I expected to find her at home, but instead, she was coming back from a hunt. She looked surprised to see me, and I gave her a smirk. “There’s our favourite nut job!” I said to her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked me defensively, and I laughed.

“What am I doing here? Keeping an eye on you, of course, that’s what. You think you can just run off like that? I don’t think so, missy,” I replied with amusement.

“Guess I’m not staying then,” she replied, turning back towards her home in Victors’ Village, and I let out another laugh.

“Good luck with that, sweetheart. I had you declared mentally unstable so you can’t leave without express permission from the government  _ and _ you have to be treated by a psychologist,” I told her victoriously, and she glared at me.

“How dare you?” she spat at me.

“How dare I? How dare  _ you _ ? You left that poor boy to fend for himself with a lonely broken heart. How can he be your entire world one day and the next, mean next to nothing to you?” I asked her angrily, and her scowl became even more aggressive.

“You don’t understand,” she hissed.

“Oh, I understand perfectly fine,” I replied. “It’s you who don’t understand. A man called Dr. Aurelius is gonna call you every day until you answer him. Pick up, don’t pick up, I don’t care, but you ain’t leavin’ until you’re better and you remember how much that boy loves you. You know you didn’t marry him for nothin’.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“If he were just a boy toy, I wouldn’t, but he ain’t. He’s your damn husband, kiddo. Love the poor boy like you promised him you would.” She sent one more furious glare my way before she stomped towards her home, slamming the door behind her, I let out a chuckle to myself and took a sip from my flask. “Poor, poor kid...” I stalked back to my own house - dark, bleak, quiet, musty, lonely - and locked myself away into my own alcoholic stupor.


	27. Chapter XXVI: My Rainbow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss locks herself in her home and Peeta and Haymitch figure out a way to get her out. Peeta takes Katniss to District Four to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Call You My Rainbow’ — Curt Boettcher

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

It took me two additional weeks to recover enough from the burns in order to properly be fitted for my new prosthetic. I hated looking down at the angry scars that made up the stump where my leg used to be. I’d never feel anything on my right foot again. Not grass, not soil, not hardwood floors, not water. It seemed silly, mourning for a lost foot when I’d lost my brother, my friends, my child and, seemingly, my wife as well, but it seemed that every piece of me was all that I had left, and even I wasn’t whole anymore.

Haymitch called me every day to update me on what Katniss was up to. Apparently, he forced his way into her house every night for dinner and made her talk to Dr. Aurelius, who wasn’t getting very far considering how stubborn Katniss was. She wasn’t telling him anything, only answering yes or no or giving very short answers. She never talked to me, nor did she want to talk to me.

Cailean thankfully didn’t disappear from my life with his sister. He came to visit me a few times, as he was helping design the most comfortable and most efficient prosthetic leg for me that he could. “If I come up with any better designs, you’ll be the first to know. I won’t stop until you’ve got your leg back,” he told me.

“That’ll never happen, so I guess you’ll never stop,” I told him, attempting to be lighthearted but failing.

“Don’t give up yet on hope, _bràthair_. I was experimenting with lizards and how they can regenerate limbs in Fourteen,” he told me, calling me the Gàidhlig word for ‘brother’. I supposed that I was his only brother left, even though I wasn’t his brother by blood. He’d lost all of his other brothers, leaving just the guy who married his sister, which happened to be me.

“You are not giving me green lizard legs,” I teased him, resulting in probably the first genuine smile I saw come from him since the end of the war.

“When you get out of here, where are you headed off to?” Cailean asked me. “Wherever Katniss is, I’m assuming?”

“She’s in Twelve right now, so I’ll be going there,” I replied. “What about you?”

“I wanted to give up the position of Senator for Thirteen, but they wouldn’t let me, said it’s a bad idea to change up the senate so soon and before the elections next year. They said I don’t have to live in Thirteen if I didn’t want to, that I could live in the Capitol if I wanted to, but I said no. I don’t want to live underground or underwater or in one of these damned sky high birds nest kind of places. I want to live by the sea, where I can walk outside and smell the salty air and not be trapped under the waves. I’ll be going to Four in a couple of days. Already got me a house there. Carolina’s coming, too. Said she loved what she did with Fourteen, but that Fourteen isn’t going to have any residents once the people move back to Thirteen or even to the other districts so it’ll be converted into a research facility. She said I’d have my own personal lab.” He chuckled gently. “We’re sharing the house. It has three bedrooms. When Katniss is better, you two should come and visit.”

“I’d love to. Katniss wants to move to Four so we might be your neighbours,” I told him with a smile.

It took almost three weeks for me to properly get adjusted to the prosthetic after trying model after model after model and then finally select one and learn how to walk on it. It was strange, at first, but I guess not all that different from walking with a regular foot. The only difference was, I now felt the pressure of each step about a foot up my right leg, while my left foot still felt the ground. Now that I was healed, my hair and my eyebrows were growing in nicely and I could finally walk properly, I finally felt fit and ready to go home to Katniss in District Twelve. It had been five weeks since I had last seen her, since she ran off to Twelve, and I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around her. I hoped she’d made some progress and wasn’t so afraid of me anymore, but when I called Haymitch the day before I was officially discharged from the hospital, my hopes faded away.

“I told her you were comin’ in a few days,” Haymitch told me over the phone.

“And what’d she do?” I asked him, and he snorted.

“Locked me out of her house. I ain’t seen her in two days,” he replied. Suddenly, I heard the sound of honking coming from the background on Haymitch’s side. “Hey! Get your grubby webbed feet off the damn table!” I heard him hiss at something.

“Haymitch,” I said when he came back to the phone. “What the fuck was that?”

“I started raising a family of geese. Sue me,” he replied nonchalantly. “And some chickens, too. Keep me fed by givin’ me eggs.” I couldn’t help but shake my head and laugh gently.

“In your _house?_ ”

“It was rainin’!”

“They’re geese, Haymitch. They like the water!”

“Not when it’s thunderin’ and lightnin’!” I couldn’t suppress the laugh at the thought of Haymitch’s house being basically an overgrown chicken coop.

“Can you get permission for me to bring Katniss to District Four? Her brother’s there and she talked about wanting to live in Four. I think the ocean would be good for her, and so will being with her brother. He’s all she’s got left.”

“That ain’t true. She’s got you and me, too, boy. But I’ll try and see if they’ll let us take her to Four. I wouldn’t mind a nice little vacation by the shore.” A couple of days later, I was stepping off of the train and onto the platform of the District Twelve train station, greeted by Haymitch, who raised his flask in the air. “Look at you, boy! The picture of health!” he said to me as we approached each other, and I couldn’t help but hug the mentor that I had come to see as my father when I saw him there. “C’mon, let's go and get your girl.”

Haymitch and I walked to Victors’ Village, my gait slower and clumsier than his now that I had my prosthetic leg. I had a cane, but I hated using it, so I held it as I walked. As we approached Victors’ Village, we both saw Katniss walking up towards her house and while I didn’t want to startle her, I felt my heart start racing the second I saw her and became excited at the thought that, just maybe, when she saw me this time, she’d run to me and throw herself into my arms. “Katniss!” I called, and when she looked in my direction, I could see the utter look of terror on her face and she ran into her house as I ran towards her. I was just close enough to hear the door lock behind her and I let out a sigh as I felt Haymitch’s hand on my upper back.

“I told you she ain’t been well, boy... Do you wanna drop your stuff off at your old place or mine?” he asked me.

“I’m not leaving her doorstep until she comes out,” I said stubbornly, and Haymitch snorted.

“This is the first I’ve seen her leave that house, boy. I don’t think she’s plannin’ on leavin’ anytime soon,” he told me.

“She’s gotta come out sometime,” I said, sitting down on her front steps with my back to the door. I was angry now, but not with her. With the war, mostly, and what it did to us. What it did to her mind to make her afraid of me. The first day I returned to Twelve, I camped out in front of her door almost the entire day, falling asleep against her door and waking up to Haymitch throwing a blanket around me at dawn. A few hours later, he told me to come inside of his house and talk to Dr. Aurelius while he waited outside of Katniss’s door.

“Have you seen her at all?” the man asked me.

“No. Well, I saw her when we first got here but only for about a minute. Since then, there’s no sign of life in her house. All her windows and doors are locked and she hasn’t come out. I don’t know if it’s me that did something or what,” I replied to him.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with you, Peeta, I think that all of this has to do with fear,” Dr. Aurelius told me.

“But she wasn’t afraid of Haymitch, or Carolina or anyone else!”

“Has she spoken to her brother, do you know?”

“Haymitch says he spoke to Cailean yesterday and Cailean hasn’t heard from her, either. But they’ve seen each other since the end of the war.”

“It sounds to me like she’s become terrified of losing you to the point where her mind has convinced her that she needs to push you away before you leave her.”

“But I’d _never_ do that! I love her!”

“I know you do, Peeta. The mind works in strange ways. It’s very evident that Katniss is fearful of something, but I don’t believe it’s you that she’s afraid of. From what I heard of the legendary Katniss Everdeen, she faces the things she’s afraid of, but she isn’t facing you, which means you aren’t what she fears.”

“How do you know that for sure? I was quite the sight when she saw me in the hospital.”

“But you’re not now, are you? There was no reason for Katniss to love you before the war and fear you after it, not when you didn’t do anything to her. There’s something else at play here.” I let out a sigh. “Keep trying to get through to her, and I’ll keep calling, but don’t try and force entry into her house unless this goes on for much longer. She’ll learn to resent you. Leave that to someone who has room to be resented by her. Find a way to get her to open the door.”

How exactly does one get the most stubborn girl in the world to open the door when she doesn’t want to? I started brainstorming, writing down ideas on a list from something as innocent as inviting her brother to Twelve to something as drastic as starting a fire, and then I let out a sigh. There was no way I was going to get through to Katniss. She’d convinced herself that she’d lost me and now, I’ve lost her. One of Haymitch’s geese started nipping at my prosthetic leg and I let out a sigh as I watched it waddle away. Perhaps Haymitch had an idea.

* * *

**HAYMITCH POV**

* * *

Of course Haymitch had an idea. Haymitch is a fuckin’ genius. Haymitch was the one that came up with the star-crossed lovers idea that got those two idiots out of the Games alive. “Break down the goddamn door,” I told the boy when he approached me for suggestions.

“Dr. Aurelius said not to force entry into her home. It might make her resent us,” the boy told me as he struggled to sit down on the girl’s front steps.

“She already resents me so I don’t give a shit,” I replied, making my way towards the door, but the boy stopped me.

“No,” he said firmly. “We’re not breaking her door down, or any doors! We’re not going inside that house unless she invites us in!”

“Well, she ain’t invitin’ us in yet!” I exclaimed angrily.

“I know... Let me try talking to her.” The boy turned around and knocked on the door, but there was no response, of course, so he knocked again. “Katniss?” he called hopelessly, pathetically. I let out a sigh as I watched this poor lovesick boy talk to a door. “Katniss, I know you’re there, I can sense you...” Oh boy. I took a sip from my flask. “Honey, I don’t know what’s going on with you right now but I wanted to tell you that I love you and I really miss you. Please come out and talk to me. I want to help you, but I can’t help you if you don’t come out. It’s not good for you to be locked up inside your house for days on end... Please? Talk to me.” There was no answer, of course, and he sighed as I sat down on the steps next to him as he turned back to rub his leg.

“How’s the leg?” I asked the boy.

“Sore. They said it would be,” he replied.

“That contraption there looks sore,” I told him.

“Yeah... Cailean invented it, said he wanted to go with the most comfortable design he could come up with. I don’t know if it'll ever be comfortable though, it’s a fake leg.”

“I can’t imagine havin’ a fake leg. You’re braver than me, kiddo.” I took another sip of my flask, and we sat there in silence until the sun started to set. “I have an idea.”

“For what?”

“For pissin’ in the bushes. What else would I have an idea for? Gettin’ the girl out, of course!”

“What's your idea?” I smirked and chuckled to myself, then dipped from my flask again.

“You’ll see. Tomorrow, eight in the mornin’, get one of them baskets from your old place and meet me at mine. This’ll get her out.”

* * *

**PEETA POV**

* * *

What. The. Hell. Goes. Through. That. Man’s. Head. I gotta hand it to him, though. If what we were about to do to Katniss happened to me, then I would be out of my house in a heartbeat. In the basket that Haymitch had asked me to bring were breadcrumbs, and following in almost a militaristic formation behind us were all of Haymitch’s geese and chickens. _All of them._ There were easily twenty chickens and maybe ten or fifteen geese. We approached the side of Katniss’s house and at about chin level was the bottom of the window that overlooked her sink in the kitchen. “She’s probably locked her windows,” I said to Haymitch as I made eye contact with one of the chickens. It seemed to look straight through me.

“Not a problem,” said Haymitch, picking up a rock.

“Haymitch, _no!_ ” I screeched, but before I could stop him, he’d already smashed the window.

“Haymitch, _yes!_ ” said the older man in response, highly amused with his seemingly genius idea.

“This is a _serious_ invasion of privacy!”

“Do you want the girl back or not?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then start handin’ me birds.” One by one, Haymitch lifted the geese and chickens into Katniss’s house through the now broken window until we were out of birds to put into Katniss’s house. There were easily thirty birds waddling around her house now, and Haymitch dusted off his hands and brushed the feathers off of his sleeve. “Now let’s head to the fountain and wait for little miss stubborn to come out.” There was no way Haymitch’s plan wasn’t going to work - Katniss wouldn’t be able to escape the incessant honking and clucking of the over thirty birds now occupying her house. As much as I didn’t want to smile at the thought of breaking Katniss’s window, I couldn’t contain my giddiness.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later, the front door to Katniss’s door opens and there she stands, dressed in pyjamas with steam coming out of her ears from her discovery of her unwanted guests. Haymitch and I, seated on the fountain that was outside of her home, looked up at her. I hid my smile, but Haymitch smirked and raised his flask to her. “Afternoon, sweetheart. Having a good day?” he asked her. A chicken seemingly came out of nowhere and landed on her head, and the fire in her eyes was almost comical.

“Get your fucking birds out of my house,” she hissed at him in her Hebridean accent that I missed so much. She shooed the chicken from her head and continued to glare at Haymitch.

“Gladly, but on one condition: you gotta let the boy and I in to get ‘em,” Haymitch replied, standing up and approaching her house. I followed behind, but stayed a couple of feet behind him, and I watched her face as her eyes quickly darted to me before turning back to Haymitch, and she stepped aside. “Good choice, sweetheart. C’mon, son.” The two of us walked into her house, Haymitch proudly and I nervously, and all three of us stood in the foyer of her home as Haymitch surveyed the damage. “Guess I got some wranglin’ to do.”

“And clean up all their shit when you’re done!” Katniss snapped at him as he headed into her living room.

“Whatever the princess demands,” I heard Haymitch say. He’d left both Katniss and I in the foyer alone. I cleared my throat, having prepared for the moment I finally saw Katniss. She looked ill, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. She was pale, her hair was a mess, her clothes looked old and I won’t even get into the smell of the place - it wasn’t just the birds.

“Katniss,” I said finally. “We need to talk.”

“Not in the mood,” she said, moving to go upstairs, but I stopped her by standing in her way.

“No. You’re not running away, you’re not hiding up in your room and you’re not burying yourself in your bed sheets again. Katniss, this is getting ridiculous. I’m your _husband_ . You married me two years ago and now you think I’ll just let you get away with shutting me out and locking yourself in your room? _No!_ This has to stop, and it’s stopping now and you’re not going to fight me on this. Do you understand?” I said to her firmly, and she narrowed her eyes at me.

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? I’m not a fucking child,” she spat back. She was so stubborn, but even her venomous remark was weak from fatigue and depression.

“Really? Because you’re acting like it, Katniss. Running away from your problems and trying to pretend that they don’t exist? That’s acting like a child, so if you’re going to act like a child, then I’m going to treat you like one. I’m not even going to ask you why you’ve suddenly started treating me like you hate me all of a sudden, so I’ll just tell you this. Pack your things. We’re going to District Four.” She stared at me, her face devoid of emotion as my words cut into her. This was the face of a broken girl who didn’t have any fight left in her, whether it be from the war exhausting her or her own mind causing all this fatigue. I wasn’t going to let her push me away any longer, and frankly, I believed her to simply be exhausted from the effort of pushing me away.

“Why,” she said tiredly, not as a question or a statement, but just simply the word.

“Why? Because you told me you wanted to move to Four after the war, to be near the ocean and all the familiar things of Hebridia,” I answered her.

“Why are you doing this,” she said, again without question or statement. Her voice was laced only with exhaustion, as she had used up the last of her energy trying to run away from me again, or yelling at Haymitch to get his birds out of her house. A goose waddled by and honked, and we ignored it as it passed us and waddled into the kitchen.

“You know why,” I told her, and she shook her head. “Yes you do. You tell me why I’m doing this.” She looked away, her eyes distant in some far away place in her mind. She remained silent, and I vowed not to answer her question until she could answer it herself. “I’m going to leave you alone tonight, but I need you to pack everything you need because we’re taking the morning train out to Four. Take a shower, too. You smell like you haven’t bathed in days.” She sent a glare at me but I held firm. “I’m choosing to trust you. I probably shouldn’t, but I am. I’m not going to take a key to this house. Leave that door unlocked. If you try to lock me out again, I swear Katniss that I will kick down that door and every door you put between us. Do you understand me?” She nodded quietly, staring down at the floor again. “Good. Now, I’ll help Haymitch get all these birds out of your house, you go upstairs and start packing.” It took her a moment to get moving but she did, and I watched as she went up to her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

She didn’t lock the front door. When I came over at seven in the morning to cook her breakfast, she was awake, fully packed and freshly bathed, but the sad and distant look hadn’t left her eyes. She sat at the table while I cooked her eggs and bacon and I buttered a piece of bread and set all of it in front of her, then made her a cup of tea the way I knew she liked it - well sugared with a splash of milk. I left her to eat while I went upstairs to collect her bags, only two, and set them downstairs to wait next to mine, and then I went to visit Haymitch to see if he was ready to go as well. By a quarter to eight, we were all standing on the platform.

“You really think gettin’ her to Four will help her?” Haymitch whispered to me when Katniss was out of earshot.

“Yeah,” I replied. “It’s the closest to home she’ll ever have.” When the train arrived, we settled into a compartment, Katniss against the window and Haymitch and I as far as we could get from her to give her some space. She was silent for most of the ride, and about three hours in, Haymitch excused himself to find the bathroom and she glanced at me.

“So it’s true,” she said, now looking down at my right foot. Just under the hem of my pants, she could see the metal leg of the prosthetic. I let out a sigh.

“You heard?” I asked, and she nodded. “Yeah, it’s true... Got blown off by one of those parachutes. Donnel saved me.”

“I heard that too,” she said, looking back out the window. She didn’t say another word. When we arrived in Four, Cailean and Carolina met us at the station. The salty scent of the ocean air hit me as I exited the train and watched perhaps the first smile on Katniss’s face as she ran into the arms of her brother, who held her tightly and spoke to her in Gàidhlig.

We settled into Cailean and Carolina’s home. I slept on the couch while Haymitch slept either on the floor or in an armchair, Carolina had her own room and Cailean had his own room, while Katniss took the third bedroom. I wanted to stay with her, but given her current mental state, I didn’t want to push her any further than I already have. That didn’t mean that I didn’t run to her when I heard her screaming from a nightmare. The first night we were there, she was screaming in terror and I ran to her, throwing the door open and taking her into my arms and she shook and cried into my shoulder. “Shhh, Katniss, honey, it’s okay! It’s okay, it’s only a nightmare, it’s not real!” I told her, rubbing her back and rocking her back and forth. I held her until she stopped sobbing and only gently shook with every hiccup, and then she looked up at me. “It’s only a nightmare,” I told her, wiping a tear from her cheek. She only nodded, then crawled back under the covers into a little ball. She hadn’t asked me to stay so I didn’t want to push her, but I stayed on the bench beneath the bay window while she slept, watching over her like a protector.

For the first few days, she kept to herself a lot, but would spend a lot of time speaking to Cailean in the language that they spoke, but none of us understood. Three days into our visit to Four, I woke up to the smell of eggs as Katniss and Cailean made breakfast in the kitchen. “Can I help?” I asked them, and they both looked at me. “I have a great recipe for pancakes.”

“Pancakes sound great,” said Cailean, and he looked at his sister. “What do you think, Kat?” She was silent for a moment before she nodded gently.

“Pancakes sound good,” she replied quietly, returning to the onions she was chopping. I got to work throwing flour, sugar, eggs and every other ingredient needed for pancakes into a bowl and started cooking them in a pan. I felt a pair of eyes on me and when I turned to meet them, I saw Katniss look away towards the floor, but I sent a smile her way anyway. She must have felt it because a gentle blush formed on her cheeks and she turned back to the counter, her back to me. It was a step in the right direction, and I couldn’t contain the smile on my face that didn’t fade for the rest of the day.

“I think she misses you,” Cailean told me one evening as I worked in the garden in his backyard. It was a small yard and was mostly a garden, but I loved tending to the herbs and flowers he and Carolina had planted back there. My back was to him and I hadn’t heard him walk out, and I looked over my shoulder at him.

“How do you know?” I asked him curiously. “Does she mention me?”

“I mention you, and she goes flush in her cheeks whenever I mention your name,” he told me.

“I don’t know if that means she misses me,” I said. “And besides, it’s not like I’m far away. I’m literally in the next room over.”

“Maybe ‘miss’ isn’t the right word,” he replied. “I know she longs for you. Everything you do for her doesn’t go unnoticed. She sees everything and she misses you, but she doesn’t want to lose you. She doesn’t feel safe yet, and doesn’t feel like the war is quite over. In her mind, Snow could come back at any time and take you away from her.”

“Did she tell you this?” He nodded.

“Only the part about her not feeling safe yet. It doesn’t take a genius to know that it’s you she worries about the most. She’s my sister, I’ve always been able to read her, but now that we’re all that’s left of our family, we know each other better.”

“What should I be doing?”

“What you’re doing is perfect. Giving her space, but being a constant presence in her life. Always being around her, loving her from a distance. I know how much she hates that she’s afraid of her own mind right now. She wants to be with you but there’s something in her that’s preventing that from happening.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You know my sister, Peeta. She has to fight her demons on her own, but she will let you support her.” We shared a simple knowing smile with one another. Katniss would come back to me, but it was hard to know when that would be, and it became harder and harder every day to resist taking her into my arms and kissing her.

She went to the beach with Cailean every day to be near the ocean, just for a few hours before coming back and busying themselves in conversation. Five nights into our visit to Four, there was an announcement on the newscast with the newly nominated President Paylor who was to give her first address as President of Panem. It came on very suddenly while Carolina and I were on the floor putting together a puzzle. She and I both scooted you against the same couch that Katniss had been sitting on to face the screen to watch the announcement when suddenly, I felt fingers in my hair. I looked up and met Katniss’s eyes - she was playing with my hair, running her fingers through it. She and I exchanged a glance and held each other’s gaze for several moments before she rested her hand on her lap and looked back up at the screen. Another step.

Early in the morning on the sixth day of our stay in Four, I went to Katniss’s room to check on her, but she wasn’t there. Knowing she liked to go for walks on her own sometimes, I left the house to walk along the boardwalk that bordered the sand, seeing her lone figure standing with her ankles in the waves. She was dressed in her pyjamas and her hair hung loose as it fluttered in the salty breeze. I wondered then if I should go to her and simply hold her, but I decided against it. Things were going well and I didn’t want to upset her, so I simply returned to the house and worked in the garden. Maybe twenty minutes later, a voice startled me - her voice. “I know why you’re doing all of this,” she told me, startling me, and I looked up at her with a look of surprise.

“Katniss,” I said when I saw that it was her who had startled me.

“You’re doing this because you love me,” she told me. My voice caught in my throat as I heard her words and it was the first time she had acknowledged our relationship since the end of the war, now going on eight weeks ago. It was early October and there was a slight chill in the air, and by slight chill I mean that the air in Four wasn’t eighty degrees anymore.

“Yeah,” I whispered back, unable to say anything more. She nodded, then turned to go back into the house. She closed herself in her room, but didn’t lock the door. She wanted to be left alone and I respected that. She was in her room for the duration of the day, and in the time that she was in there, Carolina had convinced me to go with her and Haymitch to the market to get my mind off of my worry for Katniss, and when we returned, Cailean handed me a note.

“She told me to give you this,” he told me, ‘she’ being Katniss, and I took it and read it:

_Peeta,_

_Meet me on the rocks by the beach. I want to talk to you. - K_

My stomach dropped, from what I’ll never know. She wanted to talk to me alone. Was she going to tell me that she didn’t love me anymore? That she wanted me to leave her alone and never speak to her again? I couldn’t bear to be without my Katniss and vowed to off myself if she told me she didn’t want me in her life anymore. A life without Katniss wasn’t a life worth living, I told myself stupidly. “It’s the girl, ain’t it?” Haymitch asked me when he noticed how nervous I appeared, and I nodded. “She’s finally comin’ around. Go and get her back.” Haymitch’s words were comforting, if not fully making sense, and I swallowed my nerves as I made my way to the rocks to meet her.

The rocks she mentioned were placed there by man long ago meant to help prevent the erosion of the beach, as well as mark the inlet where the fishing boats came through. They were large, jagged, black and shiny from the waves that crashed up against them and I knew Katniss liked to climb them and get out as far into the sea as they could carry her. When I arrived at the rocks, I saw her standing on them, silhouetted against the setting sun, and she looked beautiful. Her chocolate brown curls were flowing free and she wore her mother’s traditional Hebridean dress. She looked so perfect, so serene, so _her_. I couldn’t resist staring at the beauty that stood before me and I made my way to her carefully, daring my prosthetic to slip and ruin the moment. As I finally approached the rather large rock that she stood on, I slipped, and her quick reflexes allowed her to turn to me just in time to grab my hand, preventing me from falling in between the rocks. She held onto my hand tightly and kept her beautiful grey eyes on mine and helped me back into the rock, refusing to let go of my hand.

We stood there motionless, staring into each other’s eyes as the waves crashed on the rocks around us and the sun set over the ocean before us. It felt like an eternity before one of us broke the silence. “You... you wanted to talk?” I asked her, reminding her of the reason that we were there, and she nodded gently.

“Yes,” she replied, and she turned to face the sun. “Another sunset... There were days that I didn’t think I’d live to see another one. Granted, the sunsets looked different in Twelve... but it was always the same sun.” I was confused now; why was she talking about the sunset? Did she bring me here to talk about the sun? “There were many sunsets that I saw because of you... maybe all of them. After you gave me the bread, I lived to see another one. And another one. And many, many more. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life watching them alone... but here we are, watching one together.” She continued to hold my hand in hers, and then she turned towards me again and raised our hands together, placing her other hand over mine. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, Peeta...” It was the first time she had uttered my name in weeks.

“You have nothing to apologise for,” I told her, placing my free hand over hers, and she shook her head.

“Why are you always so kind and forgiving?” she asked me. “I’ve done nothing to deserve your kindness and yet, you never fail to give it to me. Of course I have to apologise. You’ve done nothing to deserve the way I’ve treated you these last few weeks. I should have been there by your side, and instead, I ran away from you.”

“You were scared...”

“There’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have done it. I made a commitment to you the day I married you and I broke the promises that I gave you.”

“Katniss...”

“You don’t deserve this. You deserve someone who will treat you right...”

“Is that all you think that you do? Treat me badly?” I was waiting for her to say something along the lines of ‘you deserve someone who loves you’, but those words never came out of her mouth, because she knew it would be a lie to imply that she didn’t love me. She looked down at our hands entwined between us, silent. “There is no one but you who thinks that I don’t deserve you.”

“That isn’t true. Haymitch thinks I don’t deserve you.”

“He’s never once said that to me.”

“He said it to me once, before the Quell.”

“That was before you told me you loved me.” She was silent again. “Do you still? Love me?” She now met my eyes as she lifted her head to look at me.

“Of course I do,” she whispered. “But I don’t think that there is anything I could ever do to make up for what I’ve done to you.”

“You’ve already done something, and it’s more than enough. You love me, you married me, we almost had a child together...” Her eyes teared up at the mention of our lost child and I raised a hand to cup her cheek, and she opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t apologise,” I interrupted. “It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. Everything happens for a reason and it’s a sign that right now, we aren’t ready to care for a baby yet. We have to care for each other first before we can allow ourselves to care for a child.” She nodded as I wiped a tear from her eye. “When the time is right, we’ll know... and we’ll have another chance.” She smiled gently as she met my eyes again.

“You should go, find someone else. Someone better for you.”

“I can’t find someone better when I already have the best.” I pressed my lips to her forehead and she let go of my hands to walk into my arms, embracing me tightly and holding onto me while I held her. “Don’t ever leave me again, do you hear me?” I whispered into her hair, and she nodded.

“I love you, Peeta,” she muttered, and I broke our embrace to look at her and caught her chin with my finger.

“I love you, too, Katniss,” I replied, and I pressed my lips to hers.

We’d been through so much, this beautiful woman and I. The Games, the rebellion and our own personal demons kept pulling us together and pushing us apart, but now, none of those things stood in the way of our future together. That night, when I brought her back to the house, she refused to leave my arms and we laughed along with Carolina, Cailean and Haymitch. They didn’t question us, only smiled and silently expressed their happiness for us both. As we were winding down, Katniss headed to bed before I did and I stayed up a little bit to talk to Cailean, Carolina and Haymitch.

“She’s on her way back up,” said Cailean of his sister.

“I knew she’d come back. She loves you so much, Peeta. She was so worried about you when she woke up after the bombs went off. She just needed to find her way back to you,” Carolina told me.

“That she did,” said Haymitch, and I noticed him throwing pillows on the couch and settling down as if he were getting ready for bed. “What?” he asked me when he caught me watching him.

“She didn’t say I could stay with her yet,” I told him.

“Because she thought it didn’t need to be said,” came Katniss’s voice from the doorway, and I turned my attention to her.

“Ah...” I said, struggling to come up with something to say.

“Come to bed, Peeta,” she told me, a smile on her face. I felt like a teenager again who was finally close to the girl I had been in love with since I was eight years old. We’d had sex before and of course, we’ve seen each other naked, but when she started to undress, I couldn’t help but blush and look away as I sat on the bed, wanting to give her some privacy, until she drew my attention to her by sitting on my lap wearing absolutely nothing. She ran a hand through my hair as she held onto my shoulders with the other. “You’re nervous?”

“‘Course not,” I lied, and she laughed gently.

“The colour of your cheeks says otherwise,” she whispered to me, then she lowered her lips onto mine to kiss me. This would be the first time we’d made love to each other since a couple of days before the end of the war and it was a day that I was waiting for eagerly, and now that it was here, suddenly I found myself terrified. For weeks, I would dream of her beautiful, naked body and I dreamt of making love to her, finding satisfaction only from my own hand. It wasn’t the same, but it helped a little. As she kissed me, she unbuttoned the shirt I was wearing and ran her hands all up and down my bare chest and I felt my pants getting tighter.

“Are you sure you want to do this so soon?” I whispered to her and I heard her chuckle gently.

“Do you not want to? We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she replied, running a finger up and down my cheek.

“I don’t want to push you to do anything you’re not ready to do, and I also don’t want you to force yourself to do something that you’re not ready for,” I told her.

“What, do you not want me anymore?” she said with a tease in her voice, and I took her hand and brought it down to the bulge in my pants.

“Say that again?” I asked her, teasing her back, and she laughed, then brought that hand back up to my face.

“Peeta, I want this...” she said, returning to her serious tone. “And I think it’ll help me. All this time, Dr. Aurelius and Haymitch were trying to get me to do all different kinds of therapy, but truthfully, I think the best form of therapy for me is you. I haven’t felt this happy since before the war ended and it’s because I’m in your arms, loving you and holding you tightly.”

“Are you sure about this?” I whispered to her one final time, and she nodded.

“I want to do the sex with you,” she said playfully, and we both shared a laugh before engaging one another in a deep, passionate kiss. She undid the zipper of my pants and started to slip them down my waist, but I felt my hands stop hers, and she broke our kiss to look at me.

“This is the first time we’ll be doing this with me not... whole...”

“Peeta... I’ll love you the same no matter much man or metal you are. So you’re missing a leg - who cares? You’re not missing your heart or your mind and that’s what matters most, isn’t it?” I smiled at her and nodded, then let her resume removing my clothes and she took me into her hand, startling me somewhat, and she pushed me back down onto the bed.

This lovemaking wasn’t just celebrating the fact that she had been so unwell and was finally breaking free of that, it was so much more. This love celebrated the winning of the rebellion, it celebrated the life that we were both so privileged to still have and even more privileged to share together, it celebrated the certainty of the rest of our lives and it celebrated the start of the next step in our lives together. We loved each other dearly, closely, passionately, and we wouldn’t stop until the sun began to rise, when we finally fell asleep still joined at our hips. It didn’t matter that mentally, we were both still scarred from what the Games had done to us, and it didn’t matter that I had half of a leg to work with. Our love was pushed to its breaking point and it still held strong - it was the kind of love that would last for all of eternity.

They say that life is a game, almost. You play to win, but in the end, we’re all dead. It doesn’t matter what we do to get to that point because the end result is all the same. But I suppose there are worse games that we could play - in fact, I _know_ that there are worse games to play because I’ve played them, and I’ve won them. But winning those games brought about demons that hung around and brought storm clouds to rain on my sunny days. It’s important to remember that when the storm clouds roll in, they may hang around for a while, blow shit around and rain enough to fill the oceans twice over, but in the end, those clouds will always float away and the sun will shine, leaving a rainbow in their place to grace the skies. Rainbows will always follow rainstorms.

The Games were my storm clouds and Katniss was my rainbow. I couldn’t wait to see what treasures awaited me on the other side of the rainbow.


	28. Chapter XXVII: Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Sunshine On My Shoulders’ — John Denver

**_Five Years Later..._ **

The rebellion ended on the tenth of August, 2163, and it was now five years later, the tenth of August, 2168. Katniss and I were both twenty-five years old now and living in our own home in District Four, but it wasn’t District Four anymore. About six months after the rebellion ended, the Senate decided that the districts didn’t have to be districts anymore and that now, they could be called something else, and we took inspiration from an ancient country known as Greece - District One’s idea. Aristotle Archer brought an old Greek dictionary that he’d found in the library of the Mansion and had flipped through it, then passed it along to all of the senators. Each Senator had a day with it, which meant that we spent about two weeks in the Capitol, which Katniss wasn’t exactly very happy about, and we wouldn’t get the little dictionary for quite some time. When we did, we both felt that we were inadequate to name the entirety of District Twelve, but the Senate was expecting us to do it. Our choice was made with the district’s new responsibility in mind. We didn’t need coal anymore, so the mines were sealed and District Twelve became the head of medicine production.

We reconvened after District Fourteen had their day with the dictionary. District One would call themselves Chrysos, which, Aristotle Archer said, meant ‘gold’, as District One produced luxury items like gold and platinum and such. District Two would call themselves Dynami, which meant ‘power’, as District Two was still where the military was based. District Three would call themselves Epistimi, which meant ‘science’, as District Three was where technological advancement was centred. District Four would call themselves Atlantica, but they hadn’t used the dictionary to name themselves. Instead, they based it on the fact that they were located on the Atlantic Ocean. District Five called themselves Helios, which pertained to the sun, as they were the district that provided electricity. District Six called themselves Odyssey, named after an ancient story about a long journey, as they were the district of travel. District Seven called themselves Xyleia, which meant ‘lumber’ - something told me that the idea was entirely Jonny Woodstock’s idea and Johanna had nothing to do with it because the word meant ‘lumber’, and she rolled her eyes when Jonny announced it. District Eight called themselves Yfasma, which meant ‘textile’, and we all struggled with learning how to pronounce it. District Nine called themselves Sitari, which very simply meant ‘wheat’ as they were the district that produced wheat. District Ten called themselves Kreas, which literally translated to ‘meat’. District Eleven called themselves Georgia, which apparently had meant ‘agriculture’ but also had been the name of a state from the former United States that had once occupied the land that District Eleven now did.

Katniss and I, upon deciding, were stuck between the words ‘farmako’ which meant ‘medicine’, ‘dodeka’ which meant ‘twelve’ and ‘ygeia’ which meant ‘health’, but ultimately settled on Sophos, which meant ‘knowledge’ and ‘wisdom’. District Thirteen called themselves Epanastatis, which meant ‘rebel’, as they were ‘the district that ignited the rebellion’ according to Gale. Fourteen simply called themselves ‘the Fòlais Laboratory’, as it would be converted to a science and research facility named in Calum’s honour. Two years after the rebellion, it became a university and was referred to as the Fòlais College of Science and Research.

The Senate was now advised by the President, who basically took on a modified role of Haymitch’s position on the War Senate. Not exactly an advisor, but was there to sit in on the meetings and keep the Senate on track.

Every district would come to have a college eventually, including Twelve. Yes, while the districts had been renamed, it was hard for us not to refer to them as the numbers that we had known them as all of our lives. Katniss finished her education as an obstetrician remotely at the university in the Capitol, which remained ‘the Capitol’.

Annie would never remarry, as she loved Finnick too much to dare strip herself of his name. She did have a couple of friends over the years, but she never allowed herself the same comfort that Finnick had given her. She claimed that she was ‘too busy’ raising Killick and Ariel, but everyone knew that she simply did not want to fall in love again, and I could understand that. If Katniss had died, I wouldn’t want to fall in love again either, even if it was something that Katniss had wanted me to do.

Johanna and Gale remained together, and as much as she didn’t want to do it, they got married for Gale’s reputation as some high-ranking military official. They ended up having four children, three boys called Rory, the oldest, Alexander and Michael, who were named after Johanna’s father and brother, and one daughter, Nelly, their second born. Nelly would come to be the target of my own son’s affections later on.

Carolina didn’t want to find love again, but somehow, she and Cailean ended up drifting together, joined by the emotions of love lost - Carolina had lost Calum and Cailean had lost Hadley. It took three years for them to drift together romantically, and when they did, it was easy to see how much they had grown to truly love each other. Cailean knew that she’d never love him the way she’d loved his brother, but the love that Carolina held for Cailean was a unique kind of love. They did try for children, both of them desperate for a child to name after the man they’d both loved and lost, but it was discovered that Carolina had internal damage from the Pox, which she’d never suspected. She claimed not to have had the Pox, but she must have been asymptomatic. She was heartbroken knowing that she couldn’t have children.

Haymitch found love, too, but this love had been brewing for at least a decade before when Effie Trinket became the Capitol escort for District Twelve during the Hunger Games. They tested each other and pushed each other to their limits, but it was obvious how much they truly loved each other more and more as time went on and they grew closer. They were maybe the first to get married of all of us after the rebellion, about a year and a half after. Effie had run and was elected as one of two Capitol senators on the Senate and Haymitch always remarked about how he was ‘married to a senator’. She tried to make him get rid of his geese and his chickens without success, so she resorted to him removing them from the house, to which he complied. They were always a presence in Carolina’s life, as she was in theirs, and though Carolina hadn’t known Effie for nearly as long as Haymitch did, she came to love her like her own mother.

Katniss and I both decided not to run for the position of Senator when the elections came up in the year 2164, even though we both knew we would have been elected. It wasn’t a job that we’d wanted. Katniss wanted to go back to work as a midwife, bringing life rather than deciding the fate of the country, and I wanted to open up a bakery, which I did. As the sole survivor of the Mellark family, I also owned the land that the bakery in Twelve had once been and eventually, I wanted to rebuild it, but I wasn’t sure how I could run it when I was all the way in Four. I suggested to Katniss that I sell it, but she refused to let me. We hadn’t had any children yet either, having both decided that we weren’t ready yet, but we both knew that someday, we would be. We decided to enjoy our time together while we had it - there would be plenty of time for starting a family later.

The former President Snow died four months after being imprisoned, and there were cheers throughout the country. He wasn’t going to last long at all, that everyone knew, and truth to be told, I was glad we didn’t execute him, even though I thought he deserved it. Katniss was right; it would have been the easy way out of his crimes. He had two children, a son and a daughter. The son fled the country, but we weren’t sure where, since the rest of the known world was underwater, and the daughter changed her name and went into hiding with her young daughter, who was ten years old. Nobody bothered her, and no one ever heard anything from or about her again.

That day, the tenth of August, 2168, there would be celebrations on the beaches of Four in honour of the rebellion that had been won. Not just in Four - all over, but we were in Four. Barbecues, fireworks, parties to last all night... The people of Panem were celebrating victory and celebrating the lives that we were all so privileged to live. Katniss, Cailean, Carolina, Effie, Haymitch, Annie, Killick, Ariel and I all went to the beach to watch the fireworks and picnic on the sand. Effie fussed over little Ariel, now five, with Annie and Killick, now seven, wanted to play frisbee with myself, Cailean and Haymitch. Carolina and Katniss put together sandwiches for us all to eat and we waited for nightfall telling funny stories of those we lost.

“I think one of my favourite memories of Finnick was a time when we were all in the cafeteria at Thirteen together and I had this genius pun pop into my head,” Katniss was saying. “I looked at everyone but him and I said, ‘Where’s Finnick?’ and he looked very confused when I made eye contact with him and then I said ‘Odair he is’.” Everyone around the blanket laughed, and Cailean and Carolina shared some funny ones of Calum.

When dusk finally came, Katniss took me by the hand and led me to the same rocks that she’d brought me to when we were finally brought back together after the war. “Is this where you want to watch the fireworks? Honey, it’s almost high tide. We’ll get wet!” I said to her.

“Shut up and sit down,” she told me, pulling me to sit beside her on the rock, and I did. We sat with my arm around her and kissed the side of her head every so often and then the fireworks began. They were a brilliant show of red, gold, purple, blue and all kinds of colours, and I looked at Katniss, who was watching them with a childlike smile on her face, lit up by the fireworks. I smiled as I watched her, and she must have felt me looking at her because she turned and looked at me. “Happy Freedom Day,” she whispered to me, and I smiled at her. “I know a good way for us to celebrate.”

“Oh, do you now?” I said to her with a teasing tone in my voice, and she nodded with a smile.

“Well, maybe after I give you my own little surprise,” she told me, and she turned to face me. Her face lit up with every firework that went off above our hands and she could easily see my somewhat confused expression. She cupped my cheek in her hand, and then turned to glance back at the group we’d left in the sand. Killick and Ariel were loving the fireworks, running around and shouting about how exciting and awesome they were. We both chuckled at their excitement before we met each other’s eyes again. “Aren’t those two something?”

“They really love the fireworks, don’t they?” I asked her. Killick and Ariel were so young and so innocent, and I was almost jealous of their innocence. The more I watched them, the more I longed for children of my own, but I wouldn’t push Katniss until I knew she was ready.

“Imagine having one of your own,” she whispered to me, and I turned my attention from Killick and Ariel to her, my eyes wide with surprise at what she was saying to me. Did she just... She couldn’t have... I must have misheard her... What? “Peeta,” she said, my face in both of her hands and our foreheads pressed together, the fireworks continuing to blast overhead and illuminate our faces. “You’re going to be a father.”

“Are you... We are... _Really?_ ” I stuttered, and she laughed and pressed her lips to my nose.

“Yes, Peeta, I’m pregnant... about three months. I wanted to wait a little bit until I knew for sure and now I do,” she replied, and I couldn’t stop myself from pushing her down onto the rock and pressing my lips against hers, holding her tightly as I thanked her again and again with my kisses. I couldn’t believe it - we were having a baby! Our own little baby, with Katniss’s eyes or her hair and maybe my smile... In six months, there was going to be a tiny human in our arms that was half of me and half of the woman I loved more than anything in the world.

It was early February when she went into labour. It was actually the day before my twenty-sixth birthday, which would be on the fourteenth of February. It was the early hours of the thirteenth when all of a sudden, I felt the sheets of the bed get wet and I prepared to strip the bed and throw clean sheets on it (the farther into her pregnancy that she went, the more prone she was to accidents - apparently it was common in pregnancy) when she told me that she hadn’t wet the bed and that she was in labour. We were in our own home in Four now, having lived there since early December, 2163. I called for help and we waited and waited for our little one to be born. Haymitch, Effie, Carolina and Cailean were there all calming me down and comforting me while the doctor examined Katniss. Effie told me that it wasn’t proper to be in the room while Katniss was giving birth but there was nothing that would stand in my way of me being beside her.

The screams and moans of labour terrified me as she groaned from the pain and she held my hand so tightly that both of our hands had gone pale. “You can do this, Katniss. You’re strong, and you’re brave, and you’ve gone through so much to get to where you are today,” I told her as she pushed, and when we both heard the screams of a crying newborn infant, we both burst into tears and I hugged my beautiful wife tightly while the doctor clamped and cut the umbilical cord and wrapped our little baby up in a blanket, then handed Katniss the bundle.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Mellark. You’ve got a daughter,” said the doctor.

“A little girl,” Katniss whispered through her tears of joy, and she looked up at me. “She looks just like you...” I brought my lips down to our newborn daughter’s head and kissed it, wiping away some small specks of blood. “This blood is beautiful... It’s nothing like the blood we know.”

“Yes, it is... and so is she,” I muttered back. “Hello, little girl... My little Lark...” Katniss glanced at the clock that sat on our bedside table and then I felt her lips on the side of my head.

“Happy birthday, to both of you,” she told me. I shared a birthday with my firstborn daughter.

**_Ten years later..._ **

It was now 2173, ten years after the rebellion had ended. We were now thirty years old. Katniss and I had to move our little family back to Twelve when Katniss was asked to help develop medicine in the district’s laboratory, and her partner was Cailean. We lived in Twelve from September to May, and in Four from June to August, maintaining both of our houses. I’d rebuilt the bakery, too, that my father had owned, and staffed it with those who had moved back to Twelve.

Little Lark was four years old now, and the twins were a little over a year. Yes, you read that right - _twins_. We’d told ourselves that we’d stop after two babies, but I suppose fate had other ideas. When, almost three years after Lark was born, Katniss told me she was pregnant again, I was overjoyed. Well, a minute or so after she’d told me. She’d waited until we were in bed, mere seconds from the grasp of sleep, and Katniss whispered my name into the dark. “Peeta...”

”Yes, my love,” I muttered back sleepily.

”I’m pregnant,” she whispered back, and I didn’t budge.

”That’s nice...” I said, nearly completely lulled off into sleep.

“Peeta, did you hear what I just said?” she’d asked.

”Yes, dear, you said you’re pregnant,” I replied back, nearly dozing off, and suddenly, the words hit me and I bolted up to look at her. “You’re _pregnant_?” She laughed as I took her face in my hands excitedly.

”Yes, Peeta, I’m pregnant,” she told me, and we celebrated in the best way that we knew how. Lark was thrilled that she’d have a little brother or sister soon. She ended up with one of each, born on a rather snowy December twenty-first in 2172, on the day of the Yule Festival. They were almost nine months old now, little Donald and Daisy.

Daisy had been born first, about ten minutes before her brother, and I cradled her in my arms while Katniss brought her twin brother into the world. I suppose neither of us were really surprised - Katniss had been a twin, and so had Cailean, and her parents had had another set of twins as well. Three sets of twins from her parents, so it was destined that we’d get at least one set ourselves. It wasn’t common to do middle names in Panem but we’d done them anyway. Lark was Lark Meadow, Daisy was Daisy Mae, and Donald was Donald Willow. We’d wanted to call him Donald Calum, but not only did it not work as well, but Carolina and Cailean had already adopted a baby boy that they’d called Calum.

It was August of 2173, so we were back in Four. It was the tenth anniversary of the rebellion and it was our turn to be the proud parents of a little one who was fascinated by the fireworks. Lark _loved_ the fireworks, and she giggled as she sat on Grandpa Haymitch’s lap, her little blonde curls bouncing as the fireworks were reflected in her eyes. Katniss and I each held one of the twins, Donald in her arms and Daisy in mine. Lark was the spitting image of me, with blonde curls, blue eyes and my smile, but she had all the spirit of Katniss. She was a wild child, that one, and she constantly kept us on our toes. She wasn’t interested in art or dolls and she loved to run around with Killick and Ariel, even though they were nine and twelve. Killick was old enough to be reaped into the Hunger Games, if they still existed, and thankfully, he would never have to fear being selected to murder other innocent children like himself.

The day after Freedom Day, Effie and Haymitch offered to watch our children while Katniss and I got to spend the day together. We didn’t know what we’d do, so we spent most of it naked in bed talking about the past in between kisses and lovemaking. The nightmares still came to us sometimes. They never really went away, honestly. The older we got, and the more sure of a safe future we had, the less frequent the nightmares became, but they never stopped. We talked about those and how we feared them invading the minds of our children, and we were grateful that they’d never have to know the horrors of the Hunger Games.

“They’ll learn about it in school,” Katniss muttered to me. “Lark is almost old enough to go to school... They’ll tell her...”

“According to Thom, whose children have been in school for a few years, they don’t learn about the Games until Grade Four,” I told her. “We still have a few years before Lark learns about them.”

“They’ll tell her about us...”

“Yes, they will, and about Finnick and Annie and Johanna and everyone else who won the Games.”

“They’ll talk about the rebellion.”

“As they should. If they don’t learn our history, they’ll be doomed to repeat it. We didn’t fight for them to never know about it, Katniss. We both knew that one day, our children would find out about it and they’ll probably ask us about it, and I see no reason why we should keep anything from them.”

“Should they know about all the killing?”

“Maybe not right away, but when they’re old enough, yes, I think they should.” I knew how worried she was about the children thinking that we were monsters, but our children loved us. They’d never accuse us of that, and they’d know that if we hadn’t, they probably would be here today.

_**Fifteen years later...** _

It was now 2178. It was October, and Lark came to the bakery from school with her blonde hair in two braids bouncing behind her. “They told us about the rebellion at school today and my friend said that you and Mommy were in it, Daddy,” she told me when I asked her how her day was.

“Ah, yes,” I told my little girl, now nine years old. I was now thirty-five and certainly looking my age, but age was nonexistent to a child. “What all did they tell you?”

“About how you and Mommy won something called the Hunger Games and that you stopped the President from allowing them to continue,” Lark replied.

“Yes, we did. Mommy was very brave during those days, and so was I.”

“Did bad things happen?”

“Of course they did, sweetie. Rebellions don’t happen because the world is a good place. But you’re too young to know about those things. Mommy and I will tell you when you’re older.”

“They told us that in the Hunger Games, children killed other children.” I stiffened up, my back to her as I stopped kneading the bread I was preparing to bake, and I let out a sigh.

“Yes... that happened, too... Lark, honey, Daddy doesn’t want to talk about the Games right now,” I told her, turning to her and kneeling down in front of her. “The things that happened, well... they make Daddy sad, and Mommy, too. Good things didn’t happen to us. When you’re older, we’ll tell you. I promise, okay?” I said to her, and she nodded with a sigh.

“Okay, Daddy,” she said, content with my answer. I knew she wanted to know the rest of the answers, but she also knew that I held true to my promises. Suddenly, I noticed that the bakery was oddly quiet.

“Did you forget something?” I asked my oldest daughter, and she gasped.

“I forgot Daisy and Donald!” she exclaimed, and she leapt off the stool and ran off back to the school, leaving me chuckling as I watched her run off. Katniss was right to be worried about the school teaching the children about the rebellion and the Games. It turned out that they taught the children all about them, listing the names of the Victors, about President Snow, about Lucy Gray Baird, about myself and Katniss and how we led the rebellion, about the War Senate and more. She even had to write a report on the War Senate when she was older. She was the only one in her class who got to interview myself, Katniss, her Uncle Gale and Aunt Johanna, Aunt Annie, Uncle Cailean and Grandpa Haymitch.

_**Twenty-five years later...** _

The year was 2188. Katniss and I were forty-five years old and it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the rebellion. We were in Four, as we were every August, and Lark was now nineteen and Daisy and Donald were fourteen. Daisy had Katniss’s facial features but she had striking hair the colour of the sunset, something she must have gotten from Katniss’s mother, Eilidh. In addition to Katniss’s features and her mother’s red hair, Daisy had my blue eyes and my talent for baking and painting, but Katniss’s talent for singing. Donald resembled a dark-haired version of myself with all of my facial features and Katniss’s dark hair, and the most unique thing about him was the fact that, like his Uncles Cailean and Calum, he had one blue eye, mine, and one grey eye, Katniss’s. His blue eye was his right, just like Calum’s. Like his Uncle Cailean, he was interested in science and his dream was to grow up to become a scientist in Twelve that made medicine.

We were in our home in Four the morning of the twenty-fifth Freedom Day getting ready to go for our annual picnic on the beach. Lark was chatting away with Carolina and Effie about how she couldn’t wait to get back to the woods of Twelve while Daisy baked with me in the kitchen and hummed a little tune she’d found in the library at school, and Donald was listening to Cailean explain something about chemistry to him. In the living room were Carolina and Cailean’s two adopted children, Calum and Hadley, now fifteen and twelve. “What song is that?” I asked my red-haired daughter, and she smiled as she iced some cookies.

“Mrs. Lamb says it’s called ‘Sunshine On My Shoulders’,” Daisy told me, flashing Katniss’s signature smile at me.

“Oh really?” I asked her, looking at her over my reading glasses that I’d grown to need. “How do the words go?” She cleared her throat and prepared to sing.

_Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy,_

_Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry..._

_Sunshine on the water looks so lovely,_

_Sunshine almost always makes me high..._

It was then that I noticed Katniss was standing in the doorway leaning up against it, listening to her younger daughter sing. She looked her age, almost half a century old now, just like me, but she still looked beautiful. I loved her salt and peppered hair almost as much as she hated the greys that had popped up over the last few years and I loved to kiss the wrinkles forming around her eyes and on her forehead, same as she did to me. I had a few grey hairs myself, but they were less noticeable in my blonde than her brunette. We were lucky to even have had the privilege to grow grey hairs and wrinkles. I turned back to my daughter.

_If I had a day that I could give you..._

_I’d give you the day just like today._

_If I had a song that I could sing for you,_

_I’d sing a song to make you feel this way..._

I could feel the sunshine on my own shoulders from the afternoon sun shining through the window and I turned my attention to Katniss again, who smiled at me and entered the kitchen to wrap her arms around me.

_Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy,_

_Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry..._

_Sunshine on the water looks so lovely,_

_Sunshine almost always makes me high..._

I noticed that Lark, Carolina and Effie had snuck into the room to sit at the table and were also watching Daisy and listening to her sing with her beautiful voice, the kind of voice that could make the birds stop to listen.

_If I had a tale that I could give you..._

_I’d tell a tale sure to make you smile._

_If I had a wish that I could wish for you..._

_I’d make a wish for sunshine for all the while..._

Haymitch, Cailean, Calum, Hadley and Donald now stood in the doorway, equally entranced by Daisy’s singing.

_Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy..._

_Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry..._

_Sunshine on the water looks so lovely,_

_Sunshine almost always makes me high..._

_Sunshine almost all the time makes me high..._

Daisy turned to look at me with a smile on her face and then suddenly became aware of the audience she’d attracted, not just of her family, but of the mockingjays outside, who carried her tune across the district. She blushed, the same way Katniss did when she got caught singing, and she resumed icing the cookies in front of her.

That song became our anthem, an anthem of hope, of happiness, of the dark days leaving and the sun taking their place. Daisy always sang it to the mockingjays, who would sing it to each other and pass it on until it was broadcast all across the district reminding us all that we could always look forward to the sunshine, even when days seemed bleak.

Haymitch died the next year, in 2189. He was seventy years old, an age he never thought he’d reach. We buried him in the cemetery in Twelve that held the bodies of every tribute from Twelve who was sent to die in the arena, with the exception of Lucy Gray, whose remains lay somewhere in the woods. Effie moved in with us until she died a few years later in 2192, probably from a broken heart. While she was never a tribute, she sacrificed a lot for the children of Twelve, and we buried her beside Haymitch.

Panem never forgot the Games, and it learned from the mistakes of its past. There was never another rebellion, nor was there a need for one. The people of Panem were satisfied, the government remained incorrupt, and the future was full of sunshine as opposed to storm clouds. We never forgot the Games either, and every night before we went to sleep, we would remember those who we lost - Finnick, Rue, Prim, Calum, and everyone else - and we lived for them.

We were so, so young when we set the country on fire with rebellion, but you know what they say. Revolutions are in the hands of the young, and the young will always inherit the revolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining me on this wild ride that I call my first (published) attempt at a Hunger Games fan fiction! Be sure to tell me how you felt about it - I love feedback!
> 
> Be on the lookout for more little short snippets, branch-offs and more from the world of ‘Our Anthem’ because I have a lot of ideas for things that happened in this story!
> 
> Thanks again so much for sticking with me until the end!


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